Drama and the Festivals of Dionysus

The first thing to understand about Greek tragedy is that it is a religious art form celebrating the god Dionysus.

Nearly all of our extant Classical Greek dramas were originally performed at the base of the Acropolis during the annual spring Festivals of Dionysus (the Dionysia), culminating at end of March (Likely, all European pagans celebrated Spring in similar ways, and the Hebrews celebrate this time as Passover;  when Christianized, it will become known as "Easter").

In this way Greek drama situates philosophy/critical enquiry at a nexus joining all of the relevant questions in a single moment: Dionysian tragic drama. 

For the Greeks, tragic theater is:

1) A religious and spiritual event – and Dionysus represents the inherent need to balance rational ideas with more instinctual emotions, verifying that just actions are not simply rational/reasonable but must also satisfy our instinctual urges (for retribution etc.).

2) Therefore, an artistic event (theater) – and like religion, art operates on a deeply emotional basis, rather than the rational.  Art "makes sense" at an emotional, not logical, level.

3) A public event – a moment when the entire city turns out to examine its deepest political/social, legal and cultural values.

The Classical Greeks saw explicitly that which we now have either forgotten or only suspect: that art and literature meld all of the necessary elements of the human experience -- the individual with the communal/polis/social, the religious with the secular, the instinctual/emotional with the rational --  into a single moment.

Art is, then, very much a religious experience in which we allow ourselves to be transformed, reshaped by others, in a communal/social event that transcends mere reason or logic.

Tragedy and Dionysus

The second thing to keep in mind about Greek tragedy is that Dionysus is the wildest, least rational of all gods.  That dude is cray cray. In fact, to worship him is to worship this wildness in our own human spirit.  He is the polar opposite of Apollo, and you can get a long way into understanding the Classical Greeks simply by understanding how the era encompasses both the irrational of Dionysus and the rational tradition of Apollo.  You do well to remember how these contradictions are to be found in the Humanist tradition of The Iliad, as well.

Long before the heady days of Classical Greeks like Aeschylus and Socrates, the Greeks were interested in, and actually worshipped, the inherent conflict between our need for both rational lives and lives driven by passion, ecstasy and even moments of insanity -- such as the conflict between passion and marriage, or retribution and social stability, Odysseus' embodiment of both hospitality and inhospitality etc. -- and how all of these conflicts may be inherent to the human condition itself, how life itself usually contains tragedy, regardless of how carefully we live in accord with both religious, personal and secular laws and codes of honor.

Understanding the Greek concept of tragedy and tragic drama/theater helps explain their perspective and how it shapes our own.

“Tragedy” itself translates in Greek as “goat-song”, and goats, and the sacrifice of goats, were closely associated with Dionysus (“Bacchus” for the Romans):

Dionysus is the god of  festivity, ecstacy, vegetation, the vine, and thus of wine, and he is also associated with the discovery of the apple – which was mainly used for producing hard cider (right up until the previous century, in fact).  As Plato said, “wine is rudderless,” and although, as you see throughout the Iliad and Odyssey, wine played a large role in religious ritual, the Greeks clearly saw its dual nature: revelry often leads to wretchedness and abandon to tragedy.   Dionysus embodies these qualities – not just in “spirits” or alcohol, but in human nature: the need to get in touch with our animal instincts and partake of excess – and the inherent dangers this need implies.

Dionysus shares a few important qualities with Demeter/Ceres (related to Ishtar in The Epic of Gilgamesh).  Both:

a) Probably pre-date the Greeks themselves – these are the most ancient of ancient religions; here we touch some of the most primitive elements of Western cultural ancestry.

b) Their worship is shrouded in mystery – we call their religions “mystery cults” and really know little about their associated rituals; here we access powerful truths about the human experience that are often kept well hidden.

c)  Both are associated with alcohol or other drugs – (Ceres with beer (grain drinks; Demeter/Ceres is Ishtar in Sumeria) or even other more powerful psychoactive substances, such as, probably ergot, an hallucinogenic byproduct of the fungus that infect cultivated grains).

d)  Both are directly linked to death and rebirth – Dionysus was the only Greek god known to die -- because he is the only god to have a mortal mother only to be reborn (each Spring); he travels to the underworld to bring his mother, Semele, back from the dead. This is similar to how Demeter/Ceres travels to the underworld to bring back her daughter, Persephone.  (He is also the last Greek god to be accepted onto Olympia and thus the youngest.)

Pan is a minor god in the retinue of Dionysus, and a god with a goat’s lower body and horns (The Jewish scriptures, for example, likely refer to Greek religion as that of “goat demons” (Leviticus 17) and the Catholic church later associated Pan with Satan -- in fact, today your visual image of Satan is likely actually of Pan).  The word “panic” – for irrational fears – is rooted in Pan’s name, and as a forest god, he, with Dionysus represents wildness and man’s animal (emotional) nature (in contrast to Athena (wisdom) and Apollo (rationality).  His “pan pipes” also remind us of the association of this emotional, a-rational side of ourselves with music.

King Midas and The Midas Touch:
The most famous myth about King Midas is when he received the golden touch from Dionysus, god of the life force. Dionysus was associated with intoxication and was followed by a group of satyrs -- half human, half goat individuals with a lust for wine and sexual pleasures. The leader of the satyrs, entrusted with Dionysus' education, was Silenus. One day, completely in character for a satyr, Silenus became intoxicated and passed out in Midas' rose garden. The peasants found him and brought him before their king. Luckily, Midas recognized Silenus and treated him well for five days and nights. During this time, Silenus entertained Midas and his court with fantastic tales.

Dionysus came to Midas and was glad to be reunited with Silenus his surrogate father. He decided to reward Midas for his hospitality and granted him one wish. Midas wished that everything he touched be turned to gold. Dionysus warned him about the dangers of such a wish, but Midas was too distracted with the prospect of being surrounded by gold to listen. Dionysus gave him the gift. Initially, King Midas was thrilled with his new gift and turned everything he could to gold, including his beloved roses. His attitude changed, however, when he was unable to eat or drink since his food and wine were also changed to unappetizing gold. He even accidentally killed his daughter when he touched her, and this truly made him realize the depth of his mistake. Desperate, Midas pleaded to Dionysus for help. Dionysus instructed Midas to bathe in the headwaters of the Pactolus River, and the wish would be washed away. Midas went to the river, and as soon as he touched the water, the river carried away the golden touch.

Dionysus and Bacchanalian Carnival: Mardi Gras:  Even after the conversion to Christianity, Mediterranean Europeans continued to celebrate Dionysus and Dionysian excess each spring.

“Satire” from “Satyrs”:  following the main show, a short comedy was performed by players dressed as Satyrs – also minor gods associated with Dionysus and Pan, in this case mainly man’s sexual nature.

Dionysus with booze and Satyrs:

How Does Dionysus Explain Greek and Modern Dramatic Tragedy?

When we combine all of these Dionysian elements we begin to understand both Greek and modern/contemporary conceptions of tragic theater, or tragedy itself – and I don’t just mean “plays” or theater up on a stage, but all "drama", including many novels, films and tv dramas – and our own conception of what tragedy is for – why we are drawn to it and what purpose it serves in our lives: this is a place where we can examine the irrational and often tragic elements of our lives, how those elements impact us as a community, and how we as individuals and a community can cope with these elements both spiritually and through just laws.

Compare to seeing films in the 30s and 40s – during WWII for instance:

-- A public event: the entire community attending as a single body
-- Newsreels: as a blend of history, policy (views of the “polis”) and propaganda, bonding the viewers into a unified community: shaping our group consciousness while addressing our deepest emotional needs, fears etc.

-- The Drama itself: often with tragic over-tones, such as war heroes coming to grips with the inhumanity of war, while learning their sacrifices are necessary to the larger cosmic order (Humphrey Bogart and Loren Bacall in Casa Blanca)

-- A short comical Cartoon usually involving animal characters, some of whom make fun of human behavior, to send you home laughing, : a “satire” or “satyr” (we have, of course, eliminated the overtly sexual element from our satirical cartoons!).

Although they adopted Dionysus as Bacchus and celebrated the Bacchanalia, the Romans largely abandoned this element of Greek culture and instead only developed and emphasized the arts of the coliseum rather than the theater -- the Romans weren't very interested in the nuances of man's existence but rather simply enforcing a more basic truth: that physical force -- rather than moral imperative and the nature of existence, fate and the gods -- determine who wins and who loses.