Thrice-born Dionysos: an analysis of the birth narrative of Dionysos in Nonnos of Panopolis’ Dionysiaca
- Authors: Mackay, Danielle Louize
- Date: 2021-10-29
- Subjects: Dionysus (Greek deity) , Zeus (Greek deity) , Nonnus, of Panopolis , Mythology, Greek , Epic poetry , Birth (Philosophy) in literature , Late antiquity , Bacchus
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/192235 , vital:45209
- Description: The following paper aims to analyse lines 660 – 774 of Euripides’ Bacchae paying close attention to the representation of the bacchants in the account given to Pentheus by the herdsman.1 Accompanying the translation is a brief commentary further elaborated and discussed in the paper below. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the Theban women are portrayed in the hills outside of Thebes and the implications this might for the inherent conception of the supposed structure of the polis and the oikos. Dionysos’ arrival in Thebes hails a systematic disruption of the social order of the Theban polis. His presence causes an inverting of all that is familiar to the Thebans, the unknown becomes known and the known reveals itself as unknown. Euripides’ Bacchae was first performed at the City Dionysia in 405 BCE, in the year after the tragedian’s death. The play dramatises the arrival of the god Dionysos to Thebes to exact vengeance on those responsible for his mother’s death and to establish his mysteries there (line 24f & 47f). Before one can begin any analysis of the text, it is important to establish the context established by the play, as this context is important to a fuller understanding of the text. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2021
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- Date Issued: 2021-10-29
"Why Persephone?" investigating the unique position of Persephone as a dying god(dess) offering hope for the afterlife
- Authors: Goodwin, Grant
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Mythology, Greek , Gods, Greek , Future life , Greece -- Religious life and customs , Persephone -- (Greek deity)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3655 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017896
- Description: Persephone’s myth is unique, as it was the central narrative of one of the most prominent ancient mystery religions, and remains one of the few (certainly the most prominent) ancient Greek myths to focus on the relationship of a mother and her daughter. This unique focus must have offered her worshippers something important that they perhaps could not find elsewhere, especially as a complex and elaborate cult grew around it, transforming the divine allegory of the changing seasons or the storage of the grain beneath the earth, into a narrative offering hope for a better place in the afterlife. To understand the appeal of this myth, two aspects of her worship and mythic significance require study: the expectations of her worshippers for their own lives, to which the goddess may have been seen as a forerunner; and the mythic frameworks operating which would characterise the goddess for her worshippers. The myth, as described in The Hymn to Demeter, is initially interpreted for its literary meaning, and then set within its cultural milieu to uncover what meaning it may have had for Persephone’s worshippers, particularly in terms of marriage and death, which form the initial motivating action of the myth. From this socio-anthropological study we turn to the mythic patterns and motifs the story offers, particularly the figure of the goddess of the Underworld (primarily in the influential Mesopotamian literature), and the Dying-Rising God figure (similarly derived from the Near East). These figures, when compared to the Greek goddess, may both reveal her unique appeal, and highlight the common attractions that lie in the figures generally. By this two-part investigation, on the particular culture’s expectations and the general mythic framework she exists in, Persephone’s meaning in her native land may be uncovered and understood.
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- Date Issued: 2015