[proh-tag-uh-nist] 
| 1. | the leading character, hero, or heroine of a drama or other literary work. |
| 2. | a proponent for or advocate of a political cause, social program, etc. |
| 3. | the leader or principal person in a movement, cause, etc. |
| 4. | the first actor in ancient Greek drama, who played not only the main role, but also other roles when the main character was offstage. Compare deuteragonist, tritagonist. |
| 5. | Physiology. agonist. |
s actor who plays the first part, lit., first combatant, equiv. to prôt(os) first + agōnists one who contends for a prize, combatant, actor. See proto-, antagonist 
| pro·tag·o·nist (prō-tāg'ə-nĭst) n.
[Greek prōtagōnistēs : prōto-, proto- + agōnistēs, actor, combatant (from agōnizesthai, to contend, from agōn, contest, from agein, to drive, lead; see ag- in Indo-European roots).] Usage Note: The protagonist of a Greek drama was its leading actor; therefore, there could be only one in a play. The question for speakers of modern English is whether a drama can have more than one protagonist. When members of the Usage Panel were asked "How many protagonists are there in Othello?" the great majority answered "One" and offered substitutes such as antagonist, villain, principal, and deuteragonist to describe Desdemona and Iago. Nevertheless, the word has been used in the plural to mean "important actors" or "principal characters" since at least 1671 when John Dryden wrote "Tis charg'd upon me that I make debauch'd persons ... my protagonists, or the chief persons of the drama." Some writers may prefer to confine their use of protagonist to refer to a single actor or chief participant, but it is pointless to insist that the broader use is wrong. · The use of protagonist to refer to a proponent has become common only in the 20th century and may have been influenced by a misconception that the first syllable of the word represents the prefix pro-, "favoring." In sentences such as He was an early protagonist of nuclear power, this use is likely to strike many readers as an error and can usually be replaced by advocate or proponent. |
The principal character in a literary work. Hamlet, for example, is the protagonist of the play by William Shakespeare that bears his name.
protagonist
in ancient Greek drama, the first or leading actor. The poet Thespis is credited with having invented tragedy when he introduced this first actor into Greek drama, which formerly consisted only of choric dancing and recitation. The protagonist stood opposite the chorus and engaged in an interchange of questions and answers. According to Aristotle in his Poetics, Aeschylus brought in a second actor, or deuteragonist, and presented the first dialogue between two characters. Aeschylus' younger rival, Sophocles, then added a third actor, the tritagonist, and was able to write more complex, more natural dialogue. That there were only three actors did not limit the number of characters to three because one actor would play more than one character
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