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In reading the Bacchae, I'd like to reach
into two of our tools in our toolbox -

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myth and ritual.
First of all, we already mentioned that

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the story pretty obviously lends itself to
a myth and ritual kind of analysis.

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We have a story of a God who's telling us
what rights he likes.

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He tells us how he wants to be worshiped.
He, we see the consequences of not

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worshiping that God.
And the myth can be looked at as a large

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story that is there to tell the background
behind ritual behaviors that you and I.

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Might find strange.
Why is it that we are out in the hillside?

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Why is it that we run around and try to
rip up some rip up a prey with our own

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hands and eat it raw?
Why is it that we get so crazily drunk?

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While this story gives us a narrative
background that helps fill in the

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reasoning behind all these pieces.
That narrative is what a myth and rituals

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claims is what myth actually is.
Myths are made up in order to give an

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explanation to rituals behaviors whose.
Normal, sensible qualities don't really

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seem apparent to us as we're doing them,
so we make up a myth in order to try to

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explain what it is we view those kind of
things.

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Now another reading that I would just.
Want to pull out and make sure we had a, a

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chance to go out.
It's a functionalist reading, pulling out

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that functionalist tool and tinkering with
the myth a bit, we might get a, try to get

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a sense of what kind of social or cultural
norm this myth is upholding.

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Now, when we start off trying to
understand this question keep in mind what

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we said when we first treated of
Dionysus's ritual activity.

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It seems pretty clear that with Dionysus
we have set of rituals that is built on an

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upheaval of social norms and customs.
So how could we talk about a functionalist

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reading if the very celebration that's
being talked about here in Dionysus is

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purposely built in order to overturn
normal social structures.

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Recapping this Dionysus's cult is.
Built on, gender bending, we've got here

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a, story about Pentheus taking on the
gender, of a female and being inserted

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into a ritual.
This mirrors, an aspect of Dionysus rites

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where it is actually.
Women who are in control of the ritual.

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They are understood to be the, the key
figures among the minads.

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Men can perform in the rites but it's
women who have the kind of powerful, most

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powerful role there.
This is thought to be very much an

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inversion in antiquity.
There is drinking to excess.

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This is more than what's normally there.
The raw and the cooked here get inverted.

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So the raw meat is what we eat now.
Young and old get all mixed up together.

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Remember how Tiresias and Cadmus
themselves are putting on leopard skins

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and getting ready to go out and have a
good time in this Dionysian worship.

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Social differences.
This is our, obliterated or just.

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Everyone isup in a drunken frenzy up on a
hillside.

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There is a loss of control of
reproduction, interestingly.

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Sex is engaged in Dionysiac Ritual for
orgiastic pleasure.

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Not having to do with strict strictures
over which women can have sex with which

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men.
We saw in Hesoid's Theogony that was

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something of great anxiety and interest to
Greek male principles, that they were

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trying to control.
The female powers of reproduction.

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Here.
Those powers linked with erotic desire are

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just gone, Yeah, let, let, let.
Let free.

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To run rampant.
Pantheus' very palace collapse.

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So talking about the destruction of a
social order, well, we see this,

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dramatized in the play.
The revolutionary power then of Dionysian

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ritual, is strongly apparent to us.
But let's just say that's on the one hand.

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And now let's try to take a look at, a
possible other side, to this revolutionary

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spirit built into Dionysian ritual.
First.

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We would.
Just remember and remind ourselves that

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Tyresius and Cadness are old and powerful
men.

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They basically represent a kind of.
Establishment kind of thinking.

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So when Tyrhesseus and Cadmus endorse
these rituals, well, then gosh it's

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probably okay for everyone to be involved
and probably everybody should do it.

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It's hardly, in other words, some kind of
revolutionary thing if these old gray

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beards are saying this is good for us,
this is good for the city, we should do

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it.
Following the Gods is a good thing.

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This is the message that they keep putting
across.

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Submit, in other words, to the authority
of the Gods.

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Another message that is built in to these
rights is that one should follow the, jump

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on the bandwagon and follow the crowd
that.

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Being out of step with what everyone else
is doing is not a good idea.

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Typically things that are truly
revolutionary expect that people should be

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out of step with some large group current.
The point that is built into this impulse

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to follow the crowd and jump on the
bandwagon is the point of respect and

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submitting to the Gods.
You should respect your elders and submit

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to the Gods.
And remember what happens to Pentheus for

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resisting this social norm.
The idea that you should get on the

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bandwagon and follow along.
Awful things happen to him.

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The play is a punishment for someone who
resists the broader social currents

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authorised by Tiresias and Dionysus.
So these features make us wonder to

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ourselves, well wait a minute, why is this
Dionysian worship.

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Why should we consider it revolutionary
when the whole point of the play is you

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should worship the Gods.
Do what your elders tell you and follow

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what everyone else is doing.
It's an interesting thing.

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What kind of social norm is the Dionysian
cult then upholding?

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Remember if we're gonna do a functionalist
reading we have to point to some social

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norm that, that, the myth is, is
endorsing.

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That it is, is underwriting and upholding.
Suggestion?

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I'll just make a suggestion here.
There'll be others.

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I hope that you all jump into the
discussion forums and come up with your

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own.
But I.

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My sense is that what's.
Being endorsed here is the social norm of

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producing a space.
Where it's okay to violate normal social

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practice.
You produce a space where something

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convoluted is allowed to happen.
There are examples of this that are common

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in religious calendars across many
different cultures.

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I'll just take one example.
In the christian calendar, 40 days before

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relent is supposed to arrive, there is a
customary time known as Mardis Gras,

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celebrated in New Orleans in the United
States and other places around the world

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where strict Catholics who will be
enforced in a.

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Period of abstention from some kind of
pleasures during those 40 days of lent

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will go overboard.
And engage in all kinds of slightly

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bending the rules kinds of behaviors.
This is, while maybe not authorized by the

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highest officials in the church it's
surely tolerated.

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And at the local level it's pretty much
probably encouraged.

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We have then an area in which the powers
that be circumscribe and say it's okay in

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this area to blow off some steam.
So first of the behavior is welcome, but

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only in this quarantine spot.
In the case of what happened with the

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Dionysian rites, it is hard to say, well
we made this point when we were talking

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about the rites in the first place, it's
hard to say that anything in Dionysus is

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anti-Olympian.
Dionysus, sure he has these kind of

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aspects of him that are a little strange,
a little bit out of step.

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There are myths about him as just kind of
arriving on the scene, but those don't

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make him any different than remember the
Homeric hymn to Demeter or the Homeric

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hymn to Apollo.
These Gods, Olympian Gods just kind of

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arrive and they have to find there place.
Dionysus is, is in that tradition and

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therefore quite traditional in the
Olympian pantheon.

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The point then, that each of these Gods
has their own way of being worshiped.

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And even when one of those ways of being
worshiped.

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Is a little different when what the others
are.

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The larger point with Dionysian worship is
that you owe respect to the Gods.

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You should give the Gods their ritual due.
Now that's hardly a revolutionary message

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is it.
So the, the larger sense I think that the

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Dionysian story is giving us is that you
resist the Olympians to your peril.

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Look what happens to poor Pentheus.
There's also another kind of cautionary

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note that jumps in here too, with
Dionysian worship you should also be a

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little bit careful.
Watch out, this authorized space in which

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norm can be violated.
You should.

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Be a little bit on alert.
Because there's always gonna be a next day

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when you're gonna wake up and have to pay
the price.

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Whether that's a, a hangover from way too
much wine or something much worse in the

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case of Agamede.
This story does definitely underwrite for

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us the idea that yes go ahead and blow off
steam but be a little bit careful when

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you're doing it.
Pulling back just a second and looking at

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the plays themselves recall that what
we're seeing here.

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The great tragedies that are performed in
Athens are being performed in a grand

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Dionysian festival.
Dionysus is the patron God.

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Of these place So in order to.
Show full and proper respect for Dionysus

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through this tragic performance its very
much the tragic performance of the bad guy

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is very much built into this larger set of
Athenian based respect paying to Dionysus.

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So its hardly a manner of a few people
thumbing their noses at authority some

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crazed younger ones going berserk or
anything like that.

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This is a performance set in a space of
Dionysus, in the city of Athens, in order

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for us all to understand.
And more fully our civic engagement and

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our proper kinds of ritual behaviors.
So I would suggest according to a

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functionalist reading, despite the spaces
in which it gets complex on the one hand,

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on the other hand, the larger message is
worship the.

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Olympian divinities.
They liked to get worshiped, show respect.

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For your elders show respect for the
customs of the day.

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So their, their functionalist message of
showing proper respect for the divinities

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gets fully endorsed and underwrited
through even this strange cousin of ours,

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Dionysus.
Who's always been a member of our family,

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we Olympians and has his own ways of doing
things.

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But even though, so his ways are different
than ours, all of us demand your respect,

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human beings.
So I think that's the message that we're

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gonna get from a functional standpoint in
Bacchae