Publishing Info: --University of Nebraska Press, 1968
Genre: - Drama
Sub-genre: - Fantasy
Nationality: - Greek
Time Period: - Classical
First and Last Read by Dr. Rearick - 1984/1995
Rated: - A
Location: - Dr. Rearick's Office and the J-Drive
Comments: - This play fascinates for a number of reasons, but one of its most interesting qualities for me is its portrayal between excessive rationality and orgasmic insanity.
As Donald Sutherland puts it the drama turns "mainly on the confrontation of [a] serious rational man by an irrational, brutal, and playfully malicious divine power" ("At Least the Most Tragic," 90).
As Christians we are not used to considering divinity in such a light. There is little room for the Trickster in our vision of God. Satan tricks and lies, but he is strongly connected with evil. And, although he is a powerful being, there is never a sense that he is in himself divine. For the Greeks, however, it was not a great stretch to see their gods simultaneously maintain their full divinity while acting foolish, cruel, or insane. Dionysus is a god, worthy of worship. No matter what cruelty he does, no matter how insane he is, being worshiped is Dionysus' right.
As hideous as such an image of god is to us, we Christians might do well to consider the role of non-reason in our own worship. In a sense we all must come to a point in which we give up reason to faith. Reason can take us only so far, so we become "mad" in the sight of the world.