Myth Of Dionysus Research Articles

‘Moving grove’: Dionysian rites of passage in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Macbeth

The major English medieval pagan folk customs, feasts, and rituals that survived in early modern England share the death-resurrection motif of the Greco-Roman agrarian rites and mystery religions associated mainly with the myths of Dionysus. This comparative study between two generically different plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Macbeth, purports to bring out, respectively, the degree of violence in a green comedy, and the effect of greenery in a tragedy of blood. It draws on René Girard's anthropological theory of sacrificial violence and scapegoating to examine the rites of passage in both plays through the archetype of the regenerative cycle of nature.

The Gaze in the Mirror: Human Self and the Myth of Dionysus in Plotinus

AbstractAt the core of Plotinus’ exploration of human selfhood, lies a reference to the myth of Dionysus-Zagreus and his mirror, one of the toys the Titans used to seduce the young Dionysus (iv.3[27].12). In interpreting the myth within this context, the mirror has been invariably regarded by scholars as a symbol for matter, an external surface on which the soul is projected and becomes embodied as a human individual by dispersing in the material depths. This paper challenges this established view and advances a new interpretation of Plotinus’ allusion to the myth and its philosophical significance. It argues that the mirror is not a symbol for matter, but rather a symbol for the soul itself, for its power to transform itself and retain its identity in the process of becoming a human individual. The function of the mirror is thus both deceptive and protective. While the desire that the soul, deceived by the mirror, feels for its own image guides it to leave behind its original condition and unity, it is this same desire that keeps the soul within itself: protected by the Dionysian mirror, even the most dispersed soul cannot desire anything other than what it takes to be itself, hence rather than disappearing in the radical alterity of matter, soul reaffirms its identity as an individual human self.

Vyacheslav Ivanov’s Concept of Dionysianism: From Symbolist Theory to Philosophy of Art

The concept of Dionysianism becomes fundamental in the work of Russian symbolist Vyacheslav Ivanov in the 1900–1910s, which led him to development of an original theory of symbolism. For this poet and thinker, symbolism becomes an integral philosophy of art. Ivanov’s theory of symbolism incorporates aesthetics, ethics, theory of knowledge, philosophy of culture. The concept of Dionysianism formed in the process of Ivanov’s philological studies of Greek religion was marked by the influence of F. Nietzsche. However, under the influence of Russian religious and philosophical thought, Ivanov comes to conclusions that contradicted Nietzsche, concerning both philological and cultural-philosophical aspects of the origin of the tragedy. The present article discusses Ivanov’s perception of F. Nietzsche’s philosophy as well as points of divergence between Nietzsche and Ivanov in understanding the mythologem of Dionysus. Particular attention is paid to the theory of realistic symbolism, understood by Ivanov as a religious symbolism, with its focus on acquiring realia in rebus , which is, at its core, a noumenon. The article also discusses Ivanov’s ideas of convergence of the myth of Dionysus with the Christian religion, his interpretation of the cult of Dionysus as well as Ivanov’s main conclusions regarding the Dionysian cult and Christianity.

‘In joy we prepare our lessons’: reading Camus’Nocesvia their reception of the Eleusinian mysteries

Nobel Prize winning author Albert Camus situates his meditations in both the opening and closing essays in his 1937 collection Noces by referring to the classical Eleusinian mysteries centring around the myths of Dionysus and the goddesses Demeter and Persephone. Noces’ closing piece ‘The Desert’ directly evokes the two levels of initiation involved in the classical Eleusinian cult in a way which prompts us to reframe the preceding essays beginning at Tipasa as akin to a single, initiatory trajectory. The kind of ‘love of life’ the opening ‘Nuptials at Tipasa’ had so marvellously celebrated, we are now informed, is not sufficient by itself. The entire round of these four essays, whose framing suggest four seasons (Spring in Tipasa, Summer at Algiers, then Autumn in Florence), are intended by Camus to enact just what the title, Noces, suggests in the context of the mysteries: namely, that hieros gamos or sacred union of man with nature or the gods at the heart of the ancient cults, tied very closely at Eleusis with reverence for the fecundity of nature, reborn each year with the return of Persephone from Hades to her grieving mother Demeter.

<b>Performance, humor, discourse of salvation and eternal return in the novel <i>Miss Lonelyhearts

This article aims at analyzing the relationship between fiction and salvific discourse in the novel Miss Lonelyhearts (1933), by Nathanael West, understanding this problematic narrative as a liberating performance of the humor classified as black, from which dogmatic contents are dissociated, with a shift beyond the psychological dimension and religious representations that contents take into account. To do so, we carried out our reading by making use of the myth of Dionysus that allows us to articulate the vertiginous logics that takes place in West's text, leading it to the nonsense that contaminates the religious discourse and deposes it from the sovereign power in this fictional world. Furthermore, our study is grounded on Deleuze's recreation of Nietzsche's eternal return. We also resort to the philosophy of religion to understand Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity and its relation to the myth of Dionysus and eternal return in the analyzed work. The analysis made of such novel points to the insertion of irony and humor in the novel as a constant literary element that causes discursive heterogeneity, pointing the ambivalences and inconsistencies of Christianity conveyed by media in the discourse of messianic metanarrative.

We E. Zamyatin, or the integrity of the mystery

AbstractThis essay attempts to analize Zamiatin's We as an aesthetic whole in which, pace Yuri Tynianov, antiutopia is organically combined with “a fantastic adventure novel.” With this aim in mind We is read not only in its literary context but also in a historical-poetologic perspective, ranging from Hellenistic love/adventure novels to Andrei Belyi's Silver Dove. Following in Belyi's footsteps, Zamiatin develops a Dionysian theme according to the interpretation proposed by Viacheslav Ivanov's interpretation (his conception of the divine unity of existence), making the myth of Dionysus the subject of an aesthetic experiment in the tradition of Mennipian satire. The author of We, to what extent the protagonist-narrator can be associated with his creator, is concerned with the fate of “the whole” not less than with the fate of individual. He is confronted with an unresolved conflict in terms of atheistic consciousness, bearing not only personal and socio-political consequences, but ontological as well.

Pater and the Myth of Dionysus

Pater and the Myth of Dionysus

Detener la guerra, no justificarla

For centuries, the humanity makes war. Different and various wars against anyone. Wars were justified by Saint Agustin and Aquinus and recently by Teresa Santiago. I would like to think that the purpose of the philosophy of the XXI century shouldbeto stop not to justify it. This article explores the myth of Dionysus because in this myth the Greeks explain thenature of war and the way to stop it.

Sniffing Petrol, Reclaiming Story and Valuing Kin: An Interview with Craig San Roque

Community psychologist and Jungian analyst Craig San Roque was instrumental in producing a dramatic re‐enactment of the ancient Greek myth of Dionysus (most familiar to us as it is presented in Euripides' The Bacchae), as a therapeutic paradigm and an intercultural resource for indigenous communities in their fight with alcohol abuse. The Sugarman, a documentary of this event, was produced by David Roberts and Bob Randall. After his twenty‐year sojourn in the UK, first training, and then practising child and family therapy, Craig returned to Australia in 1986, and moved to Alice Springs in 1992, to focus on Indigenous matters and intercultural dynamics. Family therapist and fellow Jungian Jeff Power was interested in finding out what had led Craig to take the direction he did.