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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 882.01
EAN: 9780195125986
ISBN: 0195125983
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 160
Publication Date: 2001-02-22
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA

Regarded by many as Euripides' masterpiece, Bakkhai is a powerful examination of religious ecstasy and the resistance to it. A call for moderation, it rejects the temptation of pure reason as well as pure sensuality, and is a staple of Greek tragedy, representing in structure and thematics an exemplary model of the classic tragic elements.
Disguised as a young holy man, the god Bacchus arrives in Greece from Asia proclaiming his godhood and preaching his orgiastic religion. He expects to be embraced in Thebes, but the Theban king, Pentheus, forbids his people to worship him and tries to have him arrested. Enraged, Bacchus drives Pentheus mad and leads him to the mountains, where Pentheus' own mother, Agave, and the women of Thebes tear him to pieces in a Bacchic frenzy.
Gibbons, a prize-winning poet, and Segal, a renowned classicist, offer a skilled new translation of this central text of Greek tragedy.

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Is Dionysus Jesus?
Review: Euripides' "Bakkhai" is an extraordinary play, and functions on many fascinating levels. At one level it can be read as an indictment of rationalism, and a warning to the audience against atheism. Toward the beginning of the play, the lead character, Pentheus, denies Dionysius' virgin birth, in which his human mother is said to have been inseminated by Zeus. Pentheus also mocks his Bacchic followers. Thus the play's story-line, in many respects, strikingly anticipates the Christian gospel, in which the followers of a wronged god (Jesus), as well as the god himself, is mocked by the authorities of a city, yet nonviolently submit to arrest, and ultimately see the city's authorities overthrown. The god Dionysus says in his opening monologue: "[Pentheus] is at war with diety itself . . . Making no mention of me when he calls upon the gods. But I will show to him and Thebes that I was born a god." Dionysius' boast reminds me of Jesus' parable of the vineyard in the gospel of Mark.

The Bakkhai can also be read as a meditation, ala Nietzsche, on the tensions between Apollonian order and Dionysian metamorphosis. At one point in the play, Pentheus, the very symbol of Apollonian order, puts on women's clothing and enters the forest to spy on the erotic revelries of the Dionysian Bakkhai, with unexpected consequences to Apollonian control. Literary critic Terry Eagleton, in his recent book on terrorism (titled "Holy Terror"), reads the play as a kind of Apollonian-Dionysian parable of imperial order fighting barbarian chaos, and applies insights from The Bakkhai to the world since 9/11.

The play can also be read as a kind of affirmation of admitting the Dionysian into life, and that the god can be enjoyed and appeased, if only people will honor his energies, and be neither too afraid of them, nor too naive concerning their ultimate power. For me, the Bakkhai of Euripides reminds me of the relentless nature of the Dionysian, and has the same sober effect as watching the terrifying, and relentless killer, in the film, "No Country for Old Men."

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Foolish Pentheus resists the worship of the god Dionysus
Review: "Bakkhai" ("The Bacchae") was written by Euripides when he was living in Macedonia in virtual exile during the last years of his life. The tragedy was performed in Athens after his death as part of a trilogy that included one extant play, "Iphigenia at Aulis," and one which is lost, "Alcaeon in Corinth." These factors are important in appreciating this particular Greek tragedy because such plays were performed at a festival that honored the Dionysus, and in "Bakkhai" he is the god who extracts a horrible vengeance. The tragedy clearly demonstrates the god's power, but it is a terrible power, which suggests less than flattering things about the deity himself.

Pentheus was the son of Echion and Agave, the daughter of Cadmus, the founder of the Royal House of Thebes. After Cadmus stepped down the throne, Pentheus took his place as king of Thebes. When the cult of Dionysus came to Thebes, Pentheus resisted the worship of the god in his kingdom. However, his mother and sisters were devotees of the god and went with women of the city to join in the Dionsysian revels on Mount Cithaeron. Pentheus had Dionysus captured, but the god drove the king insane, who then shackled a bull instead of the god. When Pentheus climbed a tree to witness in secret the reverly of the Bacchic women, he was discovered and torn to pieces by his mother and sisters, who, in their Bacchic frenzy, believed him to be a wild beast. The horrific action is described in gory detail by a messenger, which is followed by the arrival of the frenzied and bloody Agave, the head of her son fixed atop her thytsus.

Unlike those stories of classical mythology which are at least mentioned in the writings of Homer, the story of Pentheus originates with Euripides. The other references in classical writing, the "Idylls" written by the Syracusean poet Theocritus and the "Metamorphoses" of the Latin poet Ovid, both post-date "Bakkhai" by centuries. On those grounds, the tragedy of Euripides would appear to be entirely his construct, which would certainly give it an inherent uniqueness over his interpretations of the stories of "Medea," "Electra," and "The Trojan Women."

I see "Bakkhai" as being Euripides' severest indictment of religion and not as the recantation of his earlier rationalism in his old age. The dramatic conflicts of the play stem from religious issues, and without understanding the opposition on Appollonian grounds of Pentheus to the new cult readers miss the ultimate significance of the tragedy. This is not an indictment of Appollonian rationalism, but rather a dramatic argument that, essentially, it is irrational to ignore the irrational. As the fate of Pentheus amply points out, it is not only stupid to do so, it is fatal. Consequently, "Bakkhai" is one of the most important of Greek tragedies.

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