Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides' Bacchae

Download or read book Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides' Bacchae written by Charles Segal and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his play Bacchae, Euripides chooses as his central figure the god who crosses the boundaries among god, man, and beast, between reality and imagination, and between art and madness. In so doing, he explores what in tragedy is able to reach beyond the social, ritual, and historical context from which tragedy itself rises. Charles Segal's reading of Euripides' Bacchae builds gradually from concrete details of cult, setting, and imagery to the work's implications for the nature of myth, language, and theater. This volume presents the argument that the Dionysiac poetics of the play characterize a world view and an art form that can admit logical contradictions and hold them in suspension.