The god Dionysus punishes the king who denies his worship, driving the women of Thebes to tear him apart. Euripides's terrifying study of ecstasy and repression.
Books that mention The Bacchae (6)
The Secret History by Donna Tartt: “I thought of the Bacchae, a play whose violence and savagery made me uneasy, as did the sadism of its bloodthirsty god.”
The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye by A. S. Byatt: “Orhan stood against the ruined stage and said something incantatory in Turkish which he then explained to Gillian was Dionysus' first speech, his terrible, smiling, threatening speech at the beginning of The Bacchae.”
How to Be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis: “This time, we read Euripides’ The Bacchae and I got the plum role.”
The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault: “Dionysos wears such a pleasant mask in the play where he sends out King Pentheus to be torn by maenads”
The Mask of Apollo by Mary Renault: “And I remembered the last time I had been up here; it was in The Bacchae, appearing as the god to close the play”
Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon: “That which is beyond us, which is greater than the human … is for the mad, or for those who listen to the mad, and then believe them. —Euripides, The Bacchae (epigraph)”