A twice-born God. Reimagining the myth in Euripides’ Bacchae

The Limits of Dionysiac Liberation in Euripides' Bacchae

Scholars have frequently observed that Dionysus is a god who breaks down barriers (of gender, class, social norms, et cetera). This is true in Euripides's Bacchae to a certain extent, and the play's breakdown of the divide between male/female and Greek/foreign has been well examined in scholarship. However, the limitations of this questioning of boundaries are much less discussed. For instance,...

The encounter with God in myth and madness

BACKGROUND It is well known how often psychiatric patients report religious experiences. These are especially frequent in schizophrenic and epileptic patients as the subject of their delusions. The question we pose is: are there differences between this kind of religious experiences and those we find in religious texts or in the mythological tradition? RESULTS An overview on famous mythologic...

Reimagining the Self-Made Man: Myth, Risk, and the Pokerization of America

This article takes a rhetorical approach to the rise of gambling in America, and in particular the growth of the game of poker, as a means to explore larger changes to America’s collective consciousness that have resulted in an increased acceptance of gambling. I contend that the rise of the risk society has resulted in significant alterations to the mythology that binds Americans together. I e...

Euripides' Second Thoughts

These Women Murder : Sexual Politics in Sade and “ The

Often called the most “modern” of the great classical tragedians, Euripides is a figure of some ambivalence, and his final play, The Bacchae confirms the ambiguities—as well as the power—of Euripidean drama. This paper examines the dynamics of gender and sexual politics in late classical Greece via The Bacchae. After an analysis of the play in its social and historical context, attention will t...