The Bacchae highlights the mutability of Dionysian power and the aspect of godhood that we spoke of before. Namely that "God" encompasses all opposites and makes them one. This is demonstrated in Pentheus' acting out of an effeminate role. Dionysus wakes whatever is suppressed or hidden and brings it to the fore of your consciousness. Pentheus' death represents his own inability to come to terms with his "anima" or opposite in God and he suffered a crack-up because of it.
What most people find interesting about this story is it's parallel with the story of Christ. It seems pretty intriguing that the story of Dionysus written by Euripides, about the time of the Buddha, possesses many common elements of the story of Christ.
Both of them are regenerative gods who die and are reborn. Both gods are the son of an ultimate male power, both are also represent a gospel of sorts and have very dedicated followers. Both of them also follow the typical hero cycle in their rise to power. They are "virgin births" who later were called to adventure, wen tout into the wilderness and returned to share life renewing message.
This is a good transition into the last two weeks of the class where we will examine the hero deed in detail; using Campbell's monomyth as the model. Campbell s basic premise was based on a departure, an initiation and a return. This model is used often to describe the hero journey and crosses cultural barriers. It describes all kinds of hero acts, from the personal to the cosmological and everything in between. This is where mythology gets really personal. Take a look at the video i posted as well as the webpage link i posted. We will cover these in more detail later.
This link will take you to a page that describes each stage of the hero's journey briefly. This will be important for the next two weeks. The author of that page also decided to outline the Harry Potter story according to Campbell's Hero Cycle. Its Quite interesting.What most people find interesting about this story is it's parallel with the story of Christ. It seems pretty intriguing that the story of Dionysus written by Euripides, about the time of the Buddha, possesses many common elements of the story of Christ.
Both of them are regenerative gods who die and are reborn. Both gods are the son of an ultimate male power, both are also represent a gospel of sorts and have very dedicated followers. Both of them also follow the typical hero cycle in their rise to power. They are "virgin births" who later were called to adventure, wen tout into the wilderness and returned to share life renewing message.
This is a good transition into the last two weeks of the class where we will examine the hero deed in detail; using Campbell's monomyth as the model. Campbell s basic premise was based on a departure, an initiation and a return. This model is used often to describe the hero journey and crosses cultural barriers. It describes all kinds of hero acts, from the personal to the cosmological and everything in between. This is where mythology gets really personal. Take a look at the video i posted as well as the webpage link i posted. We will cover these in more detail later.
