HUM-8 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Origin Myth, Maenad, Sparagmos
Document Summary
Bacchic-orphic mysteries - religious practice mysteries just like eleusis. God of mask, mania, drunkenness, growing vines, god of wine. Bacchinial wild party, rules are broken and redefined at the parties. Human female devotees = bacchae or maenads. He is very liminal, he does not break boundaries, he dissolves boundaries, focus on human consciousness and awareness, he removes inhibitions about what people are about to do. Creates communitas from making people drunk, breaks down social boundaries. Ecstasy being out of your body from being too drunk. As the play opens, semele is dead, she was struck by lightning. Zeus took the baby of him and semele (dionysus) he keeps it in his thigh. Everyone thinks semele was lying and that"s why she was killed, they don"t know about. Etiological myth tells us how something came to be in lawki. The bacchae is etiological myth for why we worship dionysus.
