The Bacchae Flashcards
(14 cards)
In tragedy, speech sounds like song “when we become emotional” for example in Bacchae when Agave transitions from song to speech when she regains sanity.
Aristoxenus
“The most striking paradox is that the god who throughout the play promises joy will at the end produce only suffering and horror.”
Garvey
“Somehow the despair seems all the darker because of the recurring theme of joy that has preceded it.”
Garvey
“One actor played Dionysus and Tiresias, another Pentheus and Agave, the third Cadmus and the two messengers; the continuity of actors, who will not have been able to disguise their voices altogether, must have affected the impact of the performances.”
Edith Hall
“A tragic hero was someone who makes a decision rooted in personal nature (physis) and maintains it to the point of self-destruction.”
Bernard Knox
“He is not a remote, spectacular deity but a deity who has deliberately disguised himself in human clothing to deceive a mortal into threatening and disrespecting him.”
S. Mills
“Because Pentheus is manipulated into the mistake of believing that he is dealing with an equal, watching the whole experience becomes highly uncomfortable for the audience.”
S. Mills
“If we feel that Dionysus’ treatment of suffering humanity is anything but a sport, we should remember that he may well be wearing a smiling mask.”
Morwood
“In driving the Theban women from the city to worship him on the mountainside, Dionysus has profoundly disrupted the city’s social structure. The women have abandoned not only their looms but their children too.”
Morwood
“Agave’s recognition scene is one of the most painful and harrowing scenes in Greek tragedy. No parent can watch it and not sympathise.”
Roisman
“It looks as though the ‘neutrality’ of the mask was ready to take its ‘expression’ from the tragedy rather than imposing a certain tone upon it.”
Taplin
“Their ecstatic joy is chilling, while heightening the pathos for the circumstances of Pentheus’ destruction.”
Rosie Wyles
“The appearance of Pentheus cross-dressed and with bacchic accessories offers a visual representation of Dionysus’ full control over him.”
Rosie Wyles
“The house is transformed by this scene from a symbol of royal authority to a symbol of Dionysus’ power.”
Rosie Wyles
