[ad. Gr. τετραλογία, f. τετρα-, TETRA- + -λογία, -LOGY. Cf. F. tétralogie.]
1. Gr. Antiq. A series of four dramas, three tragic (the trilogy) and one satyric, exhibited at Athens at the festival of Dionysus.
1656. Stanley, Hist. Philos., v. (1701), 158/1. He made a compleat Tetralogy (four Drama’s, as the manner was, when they contested, to be presented at four several Festivals).
1840. trans. C. O. Müller’s Hist. Lit. Greece, xxiv. § 2. In the several tetralogies, however, the satyrical drama must have been lost or perhaps never existed.
b. Hence, Any series of four related dramatic or literary compositions.
a. 1742. [Warburton], Ricardus Aristarchus, in Pope’s Dunciad (1743), p. xxxi. May we not then be excused, if for the future we consider the Epics of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, together with this our poem, as a complete Tetralogy, in which the last worthily holdeth the place or station of the satyric piece?
1862. Goulburn, Pers. Relig., IV. xii. A Tetralogy of Parables.
1883. St. James’ Gaz., 3 Feb., 5. Wagner’s ‘tetralogy’ of operas.
2. A set of four speeches. Cf. TETRALOGUE.
1661. Blount, Glossogr. (ed. 2), Tetralogie (Gr.), a speaking or writing in four parts.
1866. Felton, Anc. & Mod. Gr., II. I. ix. 163. They [speeches of Antiphon] are in the form of tetralogies, each tetralogy containing a speech and a reply of the plaintiff and the defendant.
1874. Mahaffy, Soc. Life Greece, v. 127, note. Discussed in Antiphon’s second tetralogy.
Hence Tetralogic a., of or pertaining to a tetralogy.
1889. Haigh, Attic Theatre, 27. But although the generic terms trilogy and tetralogy were of relatively late origin, it was customary at a much earlier period to give a common name to groups of plays composed on the tetralogic system.
