The Coexistence of Contradictions in Ancient Greek Theater and Dionysian Ri̇tes

Abstract

<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Although the claim that theater is derived from ritual is a hypothesis due to lack of written sources, structural similarities between ritual and drama reinforce this idea. Many anthropologists agree that comedy and tragedy genres are the advanced artistic forms of Dionysian religious rituals. Dionysus has two different faces at the same time; on the one hand, a frivolous god, expressed in laughter, celebration, pleasure and rebirth, and a serious deity who is associated with crying, suffering, fear and death on the other. In this study, an attempt is made to try explain the Dionysus cult, which is supposed to be the origin of theater, from the mythology to the rituals, from the Greek society to the forms of mimetic representation. Categories such as religion and art, ritual and drama, comedy and tragedy are intertwined in Dionysus. The contradictions in the rituals have continued to exist in the theater, despite changing form.</span>