The Bacchae

Euripides

Dr. Leyla Kayhan Elbirlik

Lecture Outline• Historical Background of Athenian Drama

• Dionysiac Festival

• Euripides the playwright

• the Cult of Dionysus

• The Bachhae

• Questions

The Greek Civilization

Archaic Period, 800-500 B.C.E.-Sappho, Homer, Hesiod

Classical Period, 510-323 B.C.E.-Thucydides, Pericles, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle

Hellenistic Period, 323 – 146 B.C.E.-Alexander the Great

-146 B.C.E. Roman conquest of Greece

Athenian Drama

• Introduced in mid-6th century in Athens

• A public and interactive event

• Tragedy, comedy, satyr plays in the Dionysian festival

• Mythic themes and subject matter taken from the Iliad and the Odyssey

• Competition of playwrights

City Dionysia and the Pompe Procession

Athenian Drama and Famous Playwrights

• Aeschylus: tragedian (525-456 B.C.E.); plays: The Oresteia (trilogy); Prometheus Bound.

• Sophocles: (496-406 B.C.E.) tragedian; plays: Oedipus and Antigone(tetralogy).

• Euripides: (485-406) more original than the other two tragedians; plays: Medea, The Trojan Women, Orestes, The Bacchae.

• Aristophanes: (450-388) Greek Comedy; plays: Lysistrata, The Clouds, The Birds.

Theatre of Dionysus, Athens Acropolis

Euripides (c.485-406 BC)

• Tragedian

• Wrote 92 plays, of which 19

survive

• Political and religious

scepticism

• Fewer prizes then other

playwrights

• Left Athens towards the end

of his life

Dionysus

• God of wine

• God of theatre

• God of fertility and

abundance

– (thyrsus: symbol of the

god’s potency)

• God of

transformation

Dionysus as God of Theatre

Teiresias on Dionysus: “This new god, whom you ridicule—no words of mine

Could well express the ascendancy he will achieve

In Hellas (Greece)” (p.200)

Dionysus

• Dionysus’s origin

– Born twice

– Half mortal (‘I have all that the

god prescribes. He is my

daughter’s son’)

• His identity:

– both foreign and Greek

– ‘that effeminate foreigner’ (p.203)

– ‘instructor in lunacy’

DionysusCHORUS:

(Dionysus) Whose gifts are joy and union of soul in dancing,

Joy in music of flutes

Joy when sparkling wine at feasts of the gods

Soothes the sore regret,

Banishes every grief,

When the reveller rests, enfolded deep

In the cool shade of ivy-shoots,

On wine’s soft pillow of sleep. (p. 204)

Worship of Dionysus

• mountain dancing at night, drinking

• tearing apart of animal/human

• eating of raw flesh

• Surrender of self: ekstasis (‘standing outside of oneself’)

• ‘I’ll run them / wild with ecstasy!’

The Apollonian and the Dionysian

• Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (1872):

– Apollonian: form, structure, control, rational thought,

reason, beauty, protection from the Dionysian

– Dionysian: wildness, irrationality, intoxication, loss of

self, animalism, sexuality, lust, cruelty

The Apollonian and the Dionysian

Dualities in the Bacchae

- City and Mountain

- Balance and Madness

- Order and Chaos

- Peace and Violence

- Civic authority and Divine authority

- Resistance and Acceptance

- Speech (Logos) and Beyond Logos

- Disguise and Recognition

The BacchaeCHORUS

“What you have said, Teiresias, shows no disrespect

To Apollo; at the same time you prove your judgement

Sound

In honouring Dionysus as a mighty god.”

CADMUS

“My dear son…

Even if, as you say, Dionysus is no god,

Let him have your acknowledgement; lie royally,

That Semele may get honour as having borne a god,

And credit come to us and to all our family….

…with a wreath of ivy; join us in worshipping this god.”

(p.202)

Worship of Dionysus

Teiresias“..Dionysus will not compel

Women to be chaste, since in all matters self-control

Resides in our own natures.” (p. 201)

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Herdsman on companies of women (Agave, Io, Autonoe):

“and they all lay

Relaxed and quietly sleeping…

Modestly, not—as you told us—drunk with wine

Or flute-music, seeking the solitary woods

For the pursuit of love.” (p. 215)

Worship of Dionysus

Messenger:

“Agave was foaming at the mouth; her rolling eyes

Were wild; she was not in her right mind, but possessed

By Bacchus….

It was no strength of hers that did it, but the god

Filled her, and made it easy.”

Cross-Dressing

Dionysus on Pentheus:

“While sane, he’ll not consent to put on woman’s clothes;

Once free from the curb of reason, he will put them on.”

(p. 222)

Productions of the Bacchae

Dionysus in 69, R. Schechner

Questions

• What sort of God is Dionysus compared to the “divine” in the Genesis and Gilgamesh?

• What are the dangers of loss of self / ekstasis?

• Is the play hopeful about the relationship between the Dionysian and human morality?

• What is the role of reason and madness in the play?

• What does Euripides think about the women in his society?

• Has peace been restored by the death of Pentheus?