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Religions 8: The Bacchae

Religions 8: The Bacchae. Euripides. Born ca. 480-406 BCE First first prize: 441 BCE Youngest of ‘big three’: Aeschylus (ca. 525/524-ca. 456/455 BCE), Sophocles (ca. 496-406 BCE) 22x participated in tragedy contests during Dionysia , won only 4 times (Sophocles won many times more).

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Religions 8: The Bacchae

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  1. Religions 8: The Bacchae

  2. Euripides • Born ca. 480-406 BCE • First first prize: 441 BCE • Youngest of ‘big three’: Aeschylus (ca. 525/524-ca. 456/455 BCE), Sophocles (ca. 496-406 BCE) • 22x participated in tragedy contests during Dionysia, won only 4 times (Sophocles won many times more)

  3. Influenced by ‘sophists’:criticised traditional public values, such as the law, justice and the gods • Not a sophist, but child of ‘sophistic movement’ in which these ideas were debated • Juxtaposes more and less accepted norms and values, e.g. Orestes in Electra is an un-heroic doubter; Hippolytus dies because he only worships one god • Realism: women inwardly disrupted figures with very real and human feelings (Medea, Electra, Phaedra in Hippolytus) • In Aeschylus and Sophocles: higher play of divine powers and fate; Euripides among humans • Bacchae (406 BCE) picks up ambivalence towards gods; normal belief was that gods do a lot of things to harm men but in the end they are good; this is criticised/put on the agenda by Euripides by emphasising that gods actually do as many evil as good things, and that the result is as mysterious as their own existence

  4. Zeus + Semele : Dionysus • Child not recognized by father (Cadmus) and sisters (Agaue, Ino, Autonoe) • Zeus kills Semele as thunderbolt • Family still blames Semele for her death • After wanderings, Dionysus comes back to set record straight and establish his cult in Thebes • Resistance from King Pentheus (son of Agaue) – revenge > main theme of Bacchae

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