Dionysus
16 important questions on Dionysus
Which symbols are typically associated with Dionysus?
- The mitra (the ivy headband).
- Deer skin.
- Leopard skin dress.
Which animals are typically associated with Dionysus?
- Leopard
- Tiger
- Bull
- Male goat
How was Dionysus born?
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What are many of the myths about Dionysus about?
What is the tripartite structure of the Bacchae?
- Dionysus and the Bacchae are oppressed by Pentheus.
- Dionysus turns Pentheus into his puppet.
- Pentheus is slaughtered by the Maenads (his mother and aunts), because Dionysus is all powerful.
Which thematic oppositions can be found in the Bacchae?
Gender: men - women
Culture: civilized Greece - the barbaric East
Culture - nature
Reason - Madness
Order - chaos
Blindness - seeing
How is Pentheus presented in the Bacchae?
Pentheus' name means "suffering", so it can be said that he is set up by Dionysus to fight and die.
Which messages can be seen in the Bacchae?
- Euripides’ rationalist resistance against ‘the Evils of Religion’ / the danger of big, emotional groups, enraged by their religion.
- The claim that people suppress their natural drive / their sexuality, even though we need it in order to thrive / be happy.
What is Euripides Hippolytus about?
When Theseus returns, he finds the letter and tries to invoke Poseidon to kill Hippolytus in turn. Poseidon's bulls kill Hippolytus, but in his dying breath, he tells his father the truth.
Even though Aphrodite has triumphed, Artemis sets up a cult for Hippolytus, who has always honoured her instead.
What are modern interpretations of the Bacchae?
- As the god of paradox, Dionysus inverts the norms of the polis and sets people free / makes them all live together in wild harmony.
- As part of a ritual, Dionysus is eaten by his followers, which refers to his "second birth", but also to the Christian sacrament and the internalisations of the sufferings of the god.
What is Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik by Nietzsche about?
This inverts Platonism, with the idea that Chaos is reality and form is mere illusion.
Dionysus gives art meaning, even if it is destructive.
Nietzsche spoke against nihilism and depression, and wanted the world to see beauty in cruelty and wildness.
How was Nietzsche's book about Apollo and Dionysus received?
How were Dionysus and Apollo viewed in ancient times?
Apollo was prophecy, Dionysus was mystic madness, the Muses were poetic madness and Aphrodite was the madness of love. They inspired each other, and Plato even said that poetry without madness could not be real poetry. However, that's also why poetry shouldn't be used to inspire young people, because madness could not serve as a teacher.
Which Dionysiac themes can be found in Death in Venice?
- The redhaired men resemble the vengeful Dionysus.
- The foreign Venice and his dream contain Eastern elements.
- Cholera serves as the rot that is destroying the city and Aschenbach's inner world.
- Tadzio (the boy) seems Apollonian, but inspires a Dionysiac frenzy in Aschenbach.
- Aschenbach becomes Dionysiac instead of Apollonian when he gives in to his desires/dyes his hair/paints his face.
- Eventually, the struggle between the Apollonian and the Dionysiac side turns out to be tragic, because it is what causes Aschenbach to eat that overripe strawberry, get cholera and die.
What is Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema about?
• A young, beautiful stranger (Terence Stamp) comes to stay with a repressed, conventional, haute bourgeoisie family in Milan.
• All family members (father, mother, son, daughter and the servant girl) instantly become erotically obsessed with him and find they cannot go on living without him: they derail in various manners.
Which themes can be found in Teorema?
- The young man causes the family to go wild and run off into the woods/streets to die, whereas their servant girl turns into a saint as she is the only one who understands him (as she is not removed from the people, unlike the bourgeoisie).
- Society is criticized as being oppressive.
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