The Bacchae - Dramatic Structure

Dramatic Structure

In a play that follows a climatic plot construction, Dionysus the Protagonist, instigates the unfolding action by simultaneously emulating the play's author, costume designer, choreographer and artistic director. Helen P. Foley wrote of the links between the importance of Dionysus as the central character and his effect on the play's structure, she writes: "the poet uses the ritual crisis to explore simultaneously god, man, society, and his own tragic art. In this protodrama Dionysus, the god of the theatre, stage-directs the play." At the start of the play, Dionysus gives us the exposition and from which we can highlight the play's central conflict; the invasion of Greece by an Asian religion.

Read more about this topic:  The Bacchae

Famous quotes containing the words dramatic and/or structure:

    “The unities, sir,’ he said, “are a completeness—a kind of universal dovetailedness with regard to place and time—a sort of general oneness, if I may be allowed to use so strong an expression. I take those to be the dramatic unities, so far as I have been enabled to bestow attention upon them, and I have read much upon the subject, and thought much.”
    Charles Dickens (1812–1870)

    Why does philosophy use concepts and why does faith use symbols if both try to express the same ultimate? The answer, of course, is that the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful.
    Paul Tillich (1886–1965)