Contradictions?

Entry #7
Work: The Bacchae

Class discussion yesterday clarified some things. First, I felt myself a little lost by the long choral passages, having a difficult time penetrating their poetry and finding their significance in the tale. Dr. McCarthy's explanation helped. Euripides was known for his poetry in the sing-song-y chorus passages, and they serve as a type of imagery to further texturize the play. I likened them to the expansive passages in a George Eliot novel that she used to break up the action--or perhaps just because George Eliot was a very verbose writer!

Returning to the introduction, Blessington comments that, "The Bacchae is not just drama; it is also a major contribution to Greek thought, for it warns of the emotion that Greek rationalism, prone to abstraction, was in danger of forgetting" (xiv). As I've commented earlier, I can see and understand that need for a balance between the intellectual and the spiritual. However, what brings me pause is to think that sex and excessive imbibing of the "spirits" is the desired way to the emotional. It is as though there was no other way to revel or connect, no real avenue to the abstract, without an artificially induced state. I don't know. Maybe because wine came from the grape (of the earth) that it was considered a mystical substance. I guess that it still is by many today. And perhaps it is my own searching in vain, finally rejecting that state and finding it in a truly natural way that I find it....naïve. To me, it's like cheating and accepting an inferior look-alike--like wanting leather and settling for naugahyde.

One last thought: I did find it humorous that Cadmus and Teiresias threw themselves so exuberantly into the celebration. I suppose that's a contradiction of what I've just said, but there's something about it. Maybe it's because Cadmus is the elder and is still able to connect with his "inner child." Or that Teiresias is the prophet, someone one would think of as serious and solemn, yet he doesn't hesitate to adorn himself and head for the hills to join the women. The duality of what might be considered sage & fool in one body is appealing to me. Contradiction or not, I like it.

Till later...