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(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Wednesday, October 01, 2014

Dialectical Criticism of Greek Myth #1: Dionysus Misspelled

The cult of Dionysis arose late in the game after the main pantheon was heavily established. Dionysis's origin myth is rife with rejection from the established humans who prudishly spurned the new-jack god and suffered for it. Sometimes by magic whammy, but often enough by being lynched by revelers, devotees of the god! In the myth's world, the established gods were in favor of Dionysis and his elevation of debauchery as something to be consecrated, venerated. It was the mainstream humans who were portrayed as philistines - opposed to the coming of the new god's cult, just as any upstanding citizen might be opposed to a movement that takes wine as emblem and the formation of a drunken mob as sacred liturgy.

I read the myth as a tantalyzingly-cloaked account of what may actually have historically happened. A cult springs up devoted to the grape, to wine and with drunkeness its sacrament. The cult is a wildfire success, but opposition rises against it from the more staid, sober elements of society - and I'd be surprised if enough of them weren't lynched by indignant, sloppy-drunk hordes. Such opposition was blasphemy, from the cult's standpoing! The authorities put their stamp on the movement as part of sublimating it, gathering it in, saying it has a rightful place and then channeling it more-or-less harmlessly into its place. Better than leaving it a rampaging and unstoppable countryside phenomenon - the rave of its day, only far less tamed. It is embraced, made to follow stations of regular worship, transmuted into merely: carnival. The ritual topsy-turveying of proprieties, the blowing off of steam, but endorsed by the man. No longer in opposition.

Another revolution contained.

So yeah: you give Dionysis a temple to keep him from bringing down every other one.

1 comment:

Pearl said...

I see no reason to dispute this.

Pearl