Meditation #6 The Bacchae -- Katie Marchant
I must admit that I was not looking forward to read The Bacchae. I haven’t enjoyed the other Greek plays that we have read so far and this one was really long which discouraged me even more. But by the third or fourth page I knew that it wasn’t going to be half as hard to comprehend for stay interested in as The Electras were. I really liked Bacchus’ opening monologue. After I finished reading I went back and re-read that section and felt like it conveyed the entire sense of the play in just a few lines. I really liked how the different scenes and chorus’ are separated, in some of the other plays it was hard to tell when the chorus began speaking to each other or the audience while in The Bacchae it was set apart into discernable sections which also made it easier to read.
One thing that kind of confused me and at the same time intrigued me was why Dionysus goes by so many different names. There is, of course, Dionysus, Bacchus, Bromius and Dithyrambus. I know we talked about this a little in class Monday but it is still a little unclear to me why, for example, on page 27 of the version Kirk sent us, does Dionysus say that Bromius appeared to him if he actually is Bromius? Is it because he is still playing the part of a common man?
I think that I must have a “thing” for word play because I feel like I write about how the word play of some character struck out to me. In The Bacchae I found it really interesting how Dionysus speaks to Pentheus. I like how much it enraged Pentheus that a man who was just a commoner would speak to him in such a degrading way and that when he tires to be clever Dionysus jumps all over him with something much better. (pages 28 and 33 for example in the emailed version)
posted by Katie Marchant @ 9:03 PM
4 Comments:
Hm, I had a similar response to this play. I didn't find it as hard to read or nearly as time consuming - maybe because the plot seemed so different from what 've gotten used to reading in this class. It's not every day we see a god in the plays.
I believe that he says that Bromius appeared to him because the chorus is not aware of his true identity. Only the audience knows that it is really just Dionysus in disguise. Also, Bromius is the thudering and roaring side of the god. In this scene he is talking about the destruction of the palace. It is very likely that he can exist in two forms at once. How awesome would that be to witness an aspect of yourself acting so powerfully on those silly mortals.
I also found the whole thing with Dionysus having all those names to be all kinds of confusing. I personally would have found it much easier if he had simply chosen one name and stuck with it! I suppose it was written that way to confuse us. I also loved your musings on the word play with Dionysus and Pentheus – I found the whole thing with Dionysus pretending to be a common man and walking among everyone who was either worshipping him or hating him to be quite amusing.
Frequently in the past, people had several names they went by, they had a formal name, a nickname and a birthname. So when he is called multiple names, it is because people are referring to him in different names that actually are his, he just doesn't usually go by them. It can get confusing to us but it was just a formality in those days.
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