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Agenda
• Aristotle’s Poetics• Tragedy Explained?
• Bacchae: Background• Drama Dramatized?
• Discussion• Advice for Pentheus…
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Poetics: ApproachMethod
• Definition• Classification• Aetiology
• origins/causes
• Critical evaluation
Criteria
• Organic coherence• Plausibility• Emotional impact• Utility
• pleasure• therapy• pedagogy
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DEFINITION OF TRAGEDY:“Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious,
complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found
in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation
(katharsis) of these emotions.” (p. 61)
POETRY VERSUS HISTORY:“Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than
history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular.” (p. 68)
PLEASURE OF LEARNING“... to learn gives the liveliest pleasure, not only to philosophers
but to men in general....” (p. 55)
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Perfection of Plot (muthos)Less Good
• Episodic• Simple lacks…
• reversal (peripateia) and/or
• recognition (anagnorisis)
Better
• Logical, plausible• Complex has…
• reversal (peripateia) and/or
• recognition (anagnorisis)
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Concepts & Application: Bacchae
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concept Bacchaeethos “character” (Pentheus)
stock tyrant’s paranoia (creon-like), stubborn.
hamartia “error” hubris – arrogant in the face of Dionysus.desis “complication”lusis “unraveling, solution”anagnorisis “recognition”peripeteia“reversal (of fortune)”catharsis “purification”learning?pleasure?
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“Happy the man whom the gods / Love, and whose secrets he knows” (Chorus, p. 399)
“For whoso leads the revel / He is always Dionysus” (Chorus, p. 400)
“There is no cure for madness, when the cure itself is mad” (Tiresias, p. 409)
Quotes: Euripides’ Bacchae
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Play Facts, Backstory
• Production• Iphigenia at Aulis• Alcmeon• Bacchae• satyr play (which?)
• Text
• Characters, Backstory• Dionysus, Pentheus• Cadmus, Tiresias• Agave, sisters• Chorus of Bacchants
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D io nysus
Z eus = S em ele Ino
P en th eus(“M an o f S o rrow s”)
E ch ion = A g ave
A ctaeon
A u tonoë
C ad m u s = H arm on ia
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Dionysus, DionysianismDionysian initiation
• Cross-dressing• Mystic knowing• Ritual rebirth
Maenads, maenadism
• Rapture• Thyrsus. . .
• “. . . and with the fennel, join reverence to riot” (p. 400)• lit. “Sanctify the hubristic
(hubristas) fennel rods all around!”
• Sparagmos, Omophagia• Oresibasia
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Maenad/bacchant
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Names
• Dionysus• “Zeus of Nysa?”
• Bakkhos (“Bacchus”)• “He of the cry iō bakkhe”
• Bromios/Bromius• “The Roarer,” Dionysus as bull
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Analysis• prologue (starts p. 395)
• Dionysus
• parodos (398): “Asian” (Anatolian) Bacchants. Cult hymn
• 1st episode (402)• Tiresias, Cadmus, Pentheus
• 1st stasimon (412)• Pentheus’ impiety
• 2nd episode (414)• Servant, Pentheus, Dionysus (in
disguise)
• 2nd stasimon (417)• Thebes’ rejection of Dionysus
• Choral dialogue (418): Chorus & D• Earthquake
• Trochaic dialogue, D & Leader (420)• “messenger” scene
• 3rd episode (422)• Short dialogue, D&P • Messenger scene: hubris in the hills
• 3rd stasimon (431)• Hope restored, do not mock the
god
• 4th episode (432)• D&P. Fitting scene
• 4th stasimon (436)• Excited song of vengeance
• 5th episode (438)• Messenger (servant on death of
Pentheus)
• 5th stasimon (442)• Short song of triumph
• exodos (443)• Agave’s mad scene
• lyric dialogue
• Cadmus’s return with Pentheus• recognition, reversal
• Lament for Pentheus• Deus ex machina
Journal Prompt(Agon pp. 414 ff)
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Imagine yourself inside Euripides' play. What would you say to Pentheus? Is he in the right? In the wrong? What would be
your advice for handling this problem he's got?