The Bacchae
EN302: European Theatre
Euripides (c.480-406 BC)
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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
The Bacchae
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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
Dionysos
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Dionysos’ birth (twice born)
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Ambiguous identity:
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Zeus’ ‘male womb’
Half human (‘My daughter had
a son who’s now a god’, p. 377)
both foreign and Greek
androgynous
deceptive
Representation of wildness,
irrationality, impulse?
Dionysos
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God of wine
Wine and theatre:
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Tiresias says it ‘stops
grief’: ‘How else could we
ease the ache of living?’
(p. 381)
The thyrsos:
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Fennel/pine/ivy
Symbol of fertility and
abundance
Images of Dionysos
Images of Dionysos
Images of Dionysos
Images of Dionysos
Dionysos worship
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Oreibasia (nighttime mountain dancing, drinking)
Sparagmos (tearing apart of animal)
Omophagia (eating of raw flesh)
Surrender of self: ekstasis (‘standing outside of
ourselves’)
‘I’ll run them / wild with ecstasy!’ (p. 372)
‘Participation mystique’?
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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.
Dionysos worship in The Bacchae
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Never seen, only described
By Dionysos, pp. 370-2:
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By Chorus, pp. 375-6:
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‘sweet’, ‘joy’, ecstasy
By Pentheus (imagined throughout):
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‘barbarian joy’, ‘battle’, ‘suffer’, revenge
‘lewd’, ‘lusty’ (p. 379 – though Tiresias refutes this)
By Herdsman, pp. 397-401:
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‘so strange, so horrible’, ‘great holy cry’, ‘eerie’, monstrous,
miraculous, graphic violence
sexual undercurrent?
Dionysos worship in The Bacchae
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The thyrsos in The Bacchae:
‘armed them all with my green fennel wand – in
battle it’s 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
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From Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (1872)
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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…’
The Apollonian and the Dionysian
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City vs. mountain
Pentheus and the repressed Dionysian:
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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, I’ll either be fighting, or I’ll 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 Apollo’s prophet, but worships Dionysos
equally…
The Bacchae and the feminine
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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
Music and the Dionysian
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Music is the most Dionysian of the arts, according to
Nietzsche
Choral odes
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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?v=LnHm3IPmpuU
Dionysos and the theatre
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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:
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Voice of Dionysos calling (probably singing) from within stage
building:
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they bless those who ‘give body and soul to Bacchus’ (p. 373)
they condemn Pentheus
Supernatural frisson?
Literal invocation?
Special effects?
Acting as ritual / transubstantiation
Communitas
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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.
Communitas, ritual and performance
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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’,
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‘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.
Ritual and performance
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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?
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Dangers of loss of self / ekstasis?
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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?
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Tiresias (in Bacchic garb): ‘You won’t 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)
Kadmos’s advice to Pentheus to lie: ‘Suppose it’s true / that Bakkhos is
no real god – / proclaim him one. It’s a fine distinguished lie!’ (p. 382)
Messenger: ‘The best wisdom is knowing what the gods want’ (p. 418) –
how easy is this?
Audience’s sympathies?
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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?
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Appearance of Agave late in the play:
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Chorus express pity for her (‘poor woman’, p. 420)
and for Kadmos (p. 427)
Pentheus’ hamartia, Agave’s anagnorisis?
Agave ends by rejecting Dionysos
Dionysos: a capricious god?
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Chorus’ presentation of Dionysos as peace-loving: a god who ‘makes men
rich / and saves the young men’s lives’ (p. 386).
He says he’s 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:
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Smiling mask throughout play
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‘it could be your face to which the blood will come’
‘You’ll make me go all to pieces!’ ‘I’d have it no other way’ (p. 410)
Cruel?
Terrifying?
Unknowable?
Kadmos recognises Dionysos: ‘You are / Vengeance – without feeling or
limit’ (p. 429).