This dissertation discusses the ways in which archaic Greek literature represents the chorus and invokes its imagery as part of a broader and complex cultural system of meaning. Although literary and visual evidence supports the notion that choral activity was an important part of daily life dating back as far as the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures, scholarly attention has largely focused on extant literature that is itself choral, rather than examining representations of choral performance in other types of poetry. However, non-choral texts like epic or hymnic poetry offer important early views of chorality, broadly defined as collectively performed actions of singing and/or dancing, while the ability of choral literature to represent its own performers itself sheds light on how choral performers viewed and utilized their role in the community. While this project discusses groups described using the word “chorus,” it also expands this narrow category to consider other groups that can be identified as choruses or as engaging with chorality, with particular attention to the representation of choral bodies (especially the female body) in literature. Drawing on the tendency of poets and performers to represent the visual aspects of choral performance, I approach the chorus through its audiences and interpreters: those who see it and those who describe it. Within the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are treated together in the first chapter, the chorus is notably connected to communal institutions that help indicate broader poetic themes. In Chapter Two, which examines Hesiod’s Theogony and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, I demonstrate that the relationship between the chorus leader and the chorus expresses varying levels of competitiveness between performers that reflect larger poetic themes and external social anxieties. The third chapter focuses on depictions of the maiden chorus, specifically those associated with Artemis or other goddess figures; frequently, in these contexts, the chorus becomes the setting for a girl’s transition into adulthood through marriage. The fourth and final chapter looks at the chorus in Alcman and Sappho, examining how the literary chorus develops when the poetry describes its own performance and its community of collective speakers.