The Bacchae

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The Bacchae

• EN302 European Theatre

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Euripides (c.480-406 BC)

• Wrote 92 plays, of which 19 survive
• Often revisionist
• Political and religious scepticism
• Rarely won first prize
• Prosecuted (unsuccessfully) for impiety
• Fled Athens towards the end of his life

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The Bacchae

• First performed 405 BC (posthumously)
• Uneasy combination of tragic and comic elements
• Peloponnesian War Athens under siege (until 404
  BC)
• Euripides had used drama to critique war (Women
  of Troy)
• Athens defeat in 404 BC brought the golden age
  of tragedy (and democracy) to an end

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Dionysos

• Dionysos birth (twice born)
• Zeus male womb
• Half human (My daughter had a son whos now a
  god, p. 377)
• Ambiguous identity
• both foreign and Greek
• androgynous
• deceptive
• Representation of wildness, irrationality,
  impulse?

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Dionysos

• God of wine
• Wine and theatre
• Tiresias says it stops grief How else could
  we ease the ache of living? (p. 381)
• The thyrsos
• Fennel/pine/ivy
• Symbol of fertility and abundance

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Images of Dionysos
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Images of Dionysos
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Images of Dionysos
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Images of Dionysos
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Dionysos worship

• Oreibasia (nighttime mountain dancing, drinking)
• Sparagmos (tearing apart of animal)
• Omophagia (eating of raw flesh)
• Surrender of self ekstasis (standing outside of
  ourselves)
• Ill run them / wild with ecstasy! (p. 372)
• Participation mystique?
• Coined by French ethnologist Lucien Lévy-Bruhl
  and made famous by Jung, this term describes a
  state of mind in which no differentiation is made
  between the self and things outside the self.

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Dionysos worship in The Bacchae

• Never seen, only described
• By Dionysos, pp. 370-2
• barbarian joy, battle, suffer, revenge
• By Chorus, pp. 375-6
• sweet, joy, ecstasy
• By Pentheus (imagined throughout)
• lewd, lusty (p. 379 though Tiresias refutes
  this)
• By Herdsman, pp. 397-401
• so strange, so horrible, great holy cry,
  eerie, monstrous, miraculous, graphic violence
• sexual undercurrent?

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Dionysos worship in The Bacchae

• The thyrsos in The Bacchae
• armed them all with my green fennel wand in
  battle its an ivied spear (p. 370)
• Guard the violence in your green wand, / respect
  its holy power (p. 374)
• At one point, all on stage hold it (Chorus,
  Tiresias, Kadmos) Pentheus is the only one
  without.
• He grabs Dionysos own thyrsos later

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The Apollonian and the Dionysian

• From 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
• Nietzsche describes Euripides as a poet who
  fought throughout his long life against Dionysus
  with heroic force only to conclude his life
  with a glorification of his opponent

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The Apollonian and the Dionysian

• City vs. mountain
• Pentheus and the repressed Dionysian
• Pentheus descriptions of Dionysos the stranger
  with the girlish body (p. 383)
• cutting of Dionysos curls
• Dionysos tucking back of Pentheus curls later
• Pentheus draws attention to choice between order
  and chaos When I come out, Ill either be
  fighting, or Ill put myself in your hands. (p.
  405)
• Chorus A reckless mouth and a mad / defiant
  mind / ruin a man / but restraint and good
  sense / protect him (p. 384)
• Tiresias shows appropriate balance of Apollonian
  and Dionysian? He is Apollos prophet, but
  worships Dionysos equally

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The Bacchae and the feminine

• Bacchae as representatives of unrestrained
  femininity (compare Furies/Clytemnestra)?
• Only women induced to madness in the play
• We are humiliated / when we let women act like
  this (p. 401-2)
• Think about all-male audience

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Music and the Dionysian

• Music is the most Dionysian of the arts,
  according to Nietzsche
• Choral odes
• Chorus equate dancing with music, wine and joy /
  ekstasis
• Ritual element to repetition
• Suggestion that chorus are drumming (p. 391)
• National Theatre of Scotland production
  http//www.youtube.com/watch?vLnHm3IPmpuU

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Dionysos and the theatre

• Theatre of Dionysos
• Tiresias on Dionysos his future power
  throughout Greece will be vast (p. 381)
• Chorus as Dionysos-worshippers, calling audience
  to join in
• they bless those who give body and soul to
  Bacchus (p. 373)
• they condemn Pentheus
• Voice of Dionysos calling (probably singing) from
  within stage building
• Supernatural frisson?
• Literal invocation?
• Special effects?
• Acting as ritual / transubstantiation

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Communitas

• From the work of anthropologist Victor Turner
  (1920-83)
• Intense feelings of solidarity and togetherness
  amongst members of a group of people a direct,
  immediate and total confrontation of human
  identities (1969 132)
• Spontaneous communitas has something magical
  about it. Subjectively there is in it the feeling
  of endless power. It is almost everywhere held
  to be sacred or holy, possibly because it
  transgresses or dissolves the norms that govern
  structured and institutionalised relationships
  and is accompanied by experiences of
  unprecedented potency. (1969 128-39)
• Turner, V. W. (1969) The Ritual Process
  Structure and Anti-Structure, New York Aldine.

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Communitas, ritual and performance

• Three phases in a rite of passage separation,
  transition (limen), and incorporation
  (reaggregation)
• In liminality, argues Turner, people play with
  the elements of the familiar and defamiliarise
  them (1982 27), and where it is socially
  positive,
• it presents, directly or by implication, a model
  of human society as a homogenous, unstructured
  communitas, whose boundaries are ideally
  coterminous with those of the human species. When
  even two people believe they experience unity,
  all people are felt by those two, even if only
  for a flash, to be one. (1982 47)
• Turner, V. W. (1982) From Ritual to Theatre The
  Human Seriousness of Play, New York PAJ.

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Ritual and performance

• Dir. Richard Schechner, Dionysus in 69
• http//ubu.com/film/depalma_dionysus.html
• (Clip played in lecture begins around 14 minutes
  in)

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A sceptical undercurrent?

• Dangers of loss of self / ekstasis?
• Second messenger describes One hand / made of
  thousands contributing to Pentheus death (p.
  416)
• Agave is empty and senseless, totally
  possessed by Bakkhos (p. 417)
• Cynical presentation of worship?
• Tiresias (in Bacchic garb) You wont hear me
  asking which gods exist / or cross-examining
  their actions. The wisest man living, though he
  brings / to bear his keenest logic, / will never
  break their grip on our lives. (p. 378)
• Kadmoss advice to Pentheus to lie Suppose its
  true / that Bakkhos is no real god / proclaim
  him one. Its a fine distinguished lie! (p. 382)
• Messenger The best wisdom is knowing what the
  gods want (p. 418) how easy is this?

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Audiences sympathies?

• Is the chorus viewpoint a model for ours?
• Do we approve of their bloodlust?
• Do we share their rejoicing in the revelation of
  Pentheus death?
• Appearance of Agave late in the play
• Chorus express pity for her (poor woman, p.
  420) and for Kadmos (p. 427)
• Pentheus hamartia, Agaves anagnorisis?
• Agave ends by rejecting Dionysos

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Dionysos a capricious god?

• Chorus presentation of Dionysos as peace-loving
  a god who makes men rich / and saves the young
  mens lives (p. 386).
• He says hes there to teach this town must
  learn to perfection / all my mysteries have to
  teach (p. 371)
• Does Dionysos manipulate Pentheus into committing
  blasphemy?
• Dionysos evident enjoyment of irony
• it could be your face to which the blood will
  come
• Youll make me go all to pieces! Id have it
  no other way (p. 410)
• Smiling mask throughout play
• Cruel?
• Terrifying?
• Unknowable?
• Kadmos recognises Dionysos You are / Vengeance
  without feeling or limit (p. 429).