Talk:The Bacchae

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Date of Brad Mays movie

According to us.imdb.com, the Brad Mays movie version was released in 2002

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0154187/

The Great Elision and other matters

I guess I was expecting a more classicist account, including some literary/technical details; including most of all the issue of the Great Elision and the resolution of the play in that missing passage. I guess I'll try and author a bit on it, and on other scholarly/documentary matters concerning the play; including the one-time (though resolved) debate as to whether it was an early work or, as has been concluded, among his last and written in his final exile in Macedon. A discussion of its religious implications in the ancient world, and in the context of Euripides' political life re its symbolism and religious statement (considering the near-apostasy of the Herakles, which nearly got him under charges in Athens; or did it, in fact, I think?); The bacchae seems a reaffirmation of the Dionysiac faith - the god of theatre whom Euripides had served his life under/for - and skirts delicately about the issue of the Dionysia itself ("it is ill to speak of the Dionysia", went an ancient saying); that it takes place on stage although the chorus - the Stranger's attendants - mimicked, no doubt, the music of the celebrations that must necessariliy remain offstage. It is also unusual among all ancient tragedies in that the god of the action appears not on the proscenion, but from within the chorus and also on-stage with the protagonist himself (Pentheus). I think also there should be more poetry in the account of Dionysos' birth - for Zeus' true nature, his godhead, was the lightning, and it was by that that Semele was blasted and the babe within, being immortal, could not be burned; so he was hidden from Hera and, as the play orates, became the most powerful of all the gods (save Zeus himself), at least within the context of the Dionysian belief/rite (Bromios! O Bromios! Euoi! Euoi!). The choruses of the play are also known as being the most fabulous and beautiful and intense of Euripides' poetry, though though are difficult to understand in that context by way of direct translation; so much symbolism, adn the mysteries of the rite, are built into the play, and within the metre and style of the choral songs, that their nature can only be known by those who are fluent in ancient Greek (who are surprisingly many, as with Latin). I wish I was equipped to write about that; I'll see if I can find some resources and some of the main commentaries by classicist/critics to add to the article. And I'll try not to wax too poetic in any of the edits I may do. About that near-violation of the taboo on portraying the Dionysia that is inherent in the play, on the very Dionysian altar of the stage itself, for which the penalty was death: Euripides came to his end by being torn to death by the king's dogs while out for a walk at night...at a crossroads no less. What a way to go (see Actaeon , Adonis and similar); another interpretation of such a death may be that it was a divine sacrifice, the god calling a beloved servant home. Apparently the savagery of the speech in the elision was a legendarily powerful part of the play, some of the finest Euripides ever wrote; part o the theme of the choruses is somewhere "victory is the joy of smashing your enemies' skulls beneath your feet, or something to that effect; the thrill of a god's victory being unlike that of men, for it is a god's right and power to exact vengeance no those who would resist him (drinking, dancing or otherwise); in an earlier period and with more pointed language this might have been near-apostasic, as with the Herakles and others, but here it is an oration of the voice of Eurpides' patron deity; not a murderer, but a victor, and lord of all his own mysteries which Pentheus dared defy; it was not murder, but fitting execution; so the play is utterly religious, almost a reaffirmation of the cynicism of the plays written in his dire days in Athens before the exile in Macedon. Said also to be one of the most evocative ancient works expressing the wilds of Macedonia and evocative of its beauty; must have been quite melodic, and given his musical reputation, highly dandeable and sensuous (for which he was criticized; for using "tavern songs" as melodies and worse)Skookum1 06:21, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Postscript: somewhere in there I meant to add that the circumstances of Dionysos' birth are the reason for his primary aspect: "the immanence of god in man", as celebrated throughout the play; intoxication only being part of that immanence, but central to his ritual celebrations also; the intoxication of artistic creativity and poetry ("poetry" then meant a synthesis of word, music and dance, the context of which is lost to us as all the tragedians were also composers and chorus-leaders and singers; you had to teach the chorus and actors orally, although much of the melody is apparently built into the metre and tonality of the accents/words. Back to the immanence-of-god-in-man - this is the core point of the play; speculations on the elision imply that the God, in announcing his triumph over his victims (the content of the Elision) point out that they could not deny him, because he was already inside them; none were immune from its power; embrace him or be destroyed by your own self; hence the fate of Pentheus and of Agave, who wakes from the orgy to discover it is not a lion's head in her arms, but her own son's; it is then the elision begins...caused by a pious monk in Constantinople 9th-11th Century sometime who needed a page to practice writing on; thankfully in another ancient document there's a Christian parody/take-off on the Elision, in worse poetry but partly reconstructible; cited one of the classical scholars I read; I'd have to look up my notes. Skookum1 06:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Picture of maenads

I added the picture of the young maenad initation from Brad Mays' film. I have a picture of Pentheus' slaughter as well. Should I add that? You can't see much but a bunch of bare bottomed women. I didn't know if it was appropriate or not. Smokingmaenad 06:38, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

New Verse Blog-Link

I attempted to add and am suggesting a link to the translation I prepared after taking a graduate course on the Bacchae of Euripides and published independently in 2005, again in web edition in January '08. I realize this may look like a conflict of interest, but I completed a BA in English and Classical Languages at UC Berkeley in 2003, checked the translation against philological commentaries & multiple translations, again with Professors at alma mater & graduate institution. I received nothing in compensation for this effort but compliments, presented portions at a San Francisco State University Forum on the Classical World in October of publication year: http://euripidesofathens.blogspot.com/2008/01/introduction.html TheAeduan (talk) 05:21, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Removing Culturally Insignificant Productions

I pulled out the references to Mills' The Rockae and the Utah Theatre Project's The Bakkhai because neither production had any cultural impact or furthered our understanding of the play.

```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wanda latoot (talk • contribs) 19:25, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Removing unsourced psychological? interpretation; sources? whose view?

Binary divisions of the Self and the Other

In The Bacchae, Dionysus is the protagonist; furthermore, he embodies aspects of both, the Self (for example, part Greek god and male) and the Other (of Asian descent and effeminate in character). When Pentheus unknowingly talks of Dionysus, he describes him as ‘some Asian foreigner, masquerading as a priest…too womanish to be a proper man’. So he insults his ethnicity, appearance, manliness and even his higher godly status.

The Bacchae can be said to enact a clash between two opposing ethnic groups; Greek and Asian. Cadmus tries to dissuade Pentheus from his quest into the unknown, urging him to not to stray from the safe sanctuary that is home: ‘Dwell within the temple of our beliefs, not in the wilderness that lies beyond’. Pentheus is adamant on hunting the impostor, who is actually Dionysus in disguise, declaring: ‘He’ll soon regret the day he brought his filthy foreign practices to our city in the West’. He later interrogates Dionysus: ‘Where are you from?’; ‘Why then bring your practices to my home?’ These foreign practices are especially threatening as they threaten to corrupt all the womenfolk, sending them into frenzied worship practices; Pentheus: ‘…this foreigner who dares infect our women's minds and bodies and our beds’. Bacchae is an occasion when some women revolted against male authority and broke the bonds tying them to their clear and narrowly defined domestic sphere within a patriarchal society.

The Theater as the Other

To be gazed upon by the mask of Dionysus is to cross the threshold between sanity and madness, between the real and unreal. When an actor put on his mask at the festival of Dionysus he marked an irruption into the heart of public life of a mode of being totally alien to the everyday world of the city. In The Bacchae an actor must assume the mask of Dionysus himself; the god himself is the protagonist. Both actors and audiences must join their fate with Dionysus and allow themselves to be taken into the imaginative world of ‘the other’ in theatrical illusion. When Dionysus goes against such accepted polarizations, he is questioning human perceptions of reality and what we see in the world; namely, a fundamentally empirical method is a weak tool, when compared to the unlimited illusion of the theater. He subverts these binaries and turns hierarchy on its head – he allows women to question the supremacy of men, but then punishes them by sending them mad - he contradicts himself, as he himself is contradictory in his nature (he is symbolized by giant phallus but his masculinity is compromised by his long hair, delicate beauty and decorative clothing; he is worshiped in the wild hillside but is central to an important and organized cult in the heart of the city; he blurs the division between comedy and tragedy). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Echosmoke (talk • contribs) 20:07, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Well removed, the above is evidently nonsense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.100.220.108 (talk) 20:50, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

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Character Description

Most pages relating to plays include a section where the list of characters is elaborated upon including any physical descriptions, personalities, relationships to other characters, etc. Would that type of section be useful here? Alissacasey (talk) 01:46, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Thebacchae1997.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:26, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Thebacchae1997.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 19:56, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Interpretive illustration of Dionysus?

I'm wondering if the illustration under the Plot section titled "Pencil illustration from 2020 depicting Dionysus leading Pentheus into the forest disguised as a maenad" should be removed. I appreciate the artist uploading their own work, but the illustration seems to contain a personal interpretation that may be considered original research. Specifically, the witch-like appearance of Dionysus suggests a kind of malevolence and demon-nesque picture of Dionysus that is not obvious from the text. I would in fact dispute this interpretation: firstly, Dionysus' earthly form is described as a youthful young man--not a witch; secondly, Pentheus appears sober and calm in the illustration while Dionysus seems crazed, whereas it is the other way around--Pentheus is the one who is crazed, seeing "two suns." Obviously, we all have our own interpretation of the work (I apologize to the artist in advance if I'm mischaracterizing the illustration), but my point is that the illustration seems to present a subjective viewpoint that sees Dionysus as a evil, malevolent witch-figure tricking Pentheus, whereas I think the play's account of good and evil is much more nuanced. Looking at the Wikipedia NOR policy, "Original images created by a Wikipedian are not considered original research, so long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments." I think in this instance, an argument could be made that the illustration does put forth original ideas of the artist who created and uploaded the work. I'd be glad to hear other people's thought on this. Thenewpotato (talk) 03:59, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

I think you're right, but the article is under-illustrated. There must be more vases etc. Johnbod (talk) 05:20, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Just doing a quick search on the internet, this page has a nice collection of vase paintings and ancient coins related to the Bacchae and is well-sourced. I'll try to see if they are available for reuse. Thenewpotato (talk) 17:42, 14 December 2020 (UTC)