Reading Dionysus: Euripides' Bacchae and the Cultural Contestations of Greeks, Jews, Romans, and Christians
Cover -- Preface -- Table of Contents -- Note on Abbreviations and Translations -- Introduction -- Part I - Preliminaries: Themes and Trajectories -- Chapter 1 - Characterizing an Uncharacteristic God -- 1.1 Maenadism and Other Forms of Madness -- 1.2 Liberation in Life and Death -- 1.3 Religious Vi...
| Summary: | Cover -- Preface -- Table of Contents -- Note on Abbreviations and Translations -- Introduction -- Part I - Preliminaries: Themes and Trajectories -- Chapter 1 - Characterizing an Uncharacteristic God -- 1.1 Maenadism and Other Forms of Madness -- 1.2 Liberation in Life and Death -- 1.3 Religious Violence and Imperial Conquest -- 1.4 Dionysus between Religious Liberty and Political Authority in Alexandria and Rome -- 1.5 Dionysus and the Jews: Conflicts and Conflations -- 1.6 Dionysus and the Christians: Sharing Sacred Wine -- 1.7 Conclusions -- Chapter 2 - Tragic Texts and Contexts -- 2.1 The Theater and Its God -- 2.2 Tragedy as Political Discourse from Polis to Empire -- 2.3 The Theater among Jews and Christians: Patterns of Resistance and Ambivalence -- 2.4 Tragic Imitations: Jewish and Christian Experiments with Exodus and Passion -- 2.5 Conclusions -- Chapter 3 - Reading Euripides' Bacchae: Some Meanings and Effects -- 3.1 The Bacchae as Metatragedy: Theorizing a Stranger's Identity -- 3.1.1 A Divine Disguise -- 3.1.2 Pentheus as Spectator -- 3.2 Religious Reversals: Problematizing Myth and Ritual -- 3.2.1 Dionysiac Lusis -- 3.2.2 The Divine Madness of Maenads and Prophets -- 3.2.3 Violence and Sacrifice -- 3.3 Foreign as Indigenous: Introducing "New" Gods and Constructing Others -- 3.4 Conclusions -- Chapter 4 - Textual Sparagmoi: Receiving Euripides' Bacchae -- 4.1 Reception and Dialogues of Difference -- 4.2 Receiving Euripides: Cultural and Ideological Factors -- 4.3 The Bacchae's Ancient Audience -- 4.4 Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Reception -- 4.5 Conclusions -- Part II - Identifying with Dionysus: Effects of Imperial Self-Representation -- Chapter 5 - Dionysus as a Ptolemaic Gentleman in Theocritus, Idyll 26 -- 5.1 Ptolemy II Philadelphus: Patron of Dionysus and the Theater -- 5.2 Theocritus: The Poet and His Patron. 10.2.2 Origen on Jesus and Euripides' Bacchae -- 10.3 Conclusions -- Part V - Polemicizing the Other: Euripides' Bacchae and the Ideological Imagination -- Chapter 11 - The Wisdom of Solomon and the Canaanite Dionysus -- 11.1 Situating the Wisdom of Solomon -- 11.2 The Tragic Rituals of the Canaanites -- 11.3 Conclusions -- Chapter 12 - Dio Chrysostom, the Alexandrian Mob, and Euripidean Maenads -- 12.1 Dio Chrysostom: Orator and Empire -- 12.2 The Alexandrian Oration: On Performances and Mobs -- 12.3 Alexandrians and the Credibility of Euripides' Mythology -- 12.4 Conclusions -- Part VI - Modifying Madness: Dionysiac Reversals in Judaism and Christianity -- Chapter 13 - Philo of Alexandria's Religious Ambivalences: (Anti-)Dionysiac Hermeneutics in De ebrietate -- 13.1 Moses on Wine, Gender, and Dionysus in De ebrietate -- 13.2 Interrogating Hannah's Sobriety and Femininity -- 13.3 Conclusions -- Chapter 14 - The Acts of the Apostles and the Rationalization of Inspired Speech -- 14.1 Acts and the Bacchae: Status quaestionis -- 14.2 Narrating Madness and Moderation in Acts 26 -- 14.2.1 A Greek Proverb in Hebrew Dialect: Authenticating Divine Discourse in Acts 26:14 -- 14.2.2 Persecution and Conversion in Acts 26: Undoing a Dionysiac Paradox -- 14.3 "Each in Their Own Dialect": Dionysus and Inspired Speech in Acts 2 -- 14.3.1 Drinking Early? Intoxication as Divine Inspiration -- 14.3.2 The Politics of Pentecost: Language and Power in Acts 2 -- 14.4 Conclusions -- Part VII - Converting Dionysus: Euripides' Bacchae beyond Antiquity -- Chapter 15 - Dionysus between "Paganism" and "Christianity" in Nonnus' Dionysiaca -- 15.1 Dionysus and the Religious and Literary World of Nonnus -- 15.2 Nonnus' Dionysiaca and the Redemption of Euripides' Bacchae -- 15.3 Conclusions. 5.3 Idyll 26: Euripides' Bacchae Revisited or Revised? -- 5.4 Theocritean Maenads as Imperial Subjects -- 5.5 Conclusions -- Chapter 6 - Philo's Legatio ad Gaium: Imitating Dionysus and (En)acting Tragedy -- 6.1 Being Jewish and Greek in Roman Alexandria -- 6.2 Dionysus: A Benevolent or Vindictive God? -- 6.3 Gaius as Tragic Actor -- 6.4 Conclusions -- Part III - Resisting Death: Ambivalence and Afterlife -- Chapter 7 - Bacchus as Tragic Hero and Stoic Sage in Horace, Epistles 1.16 -- 7.1 Dionysus at Rome -- 7.2 Euripides' Bacchae on the Roman Stage and in Imperial Epic -- 7.3 Horace: The Poet, the Emperor, and Bacchus -- 7.4 Horace's Epistles Book 1: Beyond Rome -- 7.5 From Cithaeron to Sabine Estate: Changing Dramatic Identities in Epistles 1.16 -- 7.6 The Bacchae and Ritual Death from the Gold Tablets to Plutarch and Epictetus -- 7.7 Conclusions -- Chapter 8 - Clement of Alexandria on Pleasure and Dying with Euripides' Bacchae -- 8.1 Clement and the Appropriation of Paideia -- 8.2 Dangerous Pleasures: Poetry and Dionysus -- 8.3 Christ as Dionysiac Mystagogue in Stromateis 4 -- 8.4 Conclusions -- Part IV - Staging Deliverance: Dionysiac Escape and Divine Vindication -- Chapter 9 - Eluding the Tyrant in Artapanus' Moses Fragment and Euripides' Bacchae -- 9.1 Artapanus between Judaism and Hellenism -- 9.2 Getting Moses out of Jail with Euripides' Bacchae -- 9.3 Conclusions -- Chapter 10 - A God Dismembered or Dismembering? Divine Retribution between Celsus and Origen -- 10.1 Celsus' Argument from Euripides' Bacchae -- 10.1.1 Christianity and the Roman Empire: The Problem of Cultural Subversion -- 10.1.2 Jesus among Gods and Heroes: The Problem of Incarnation, Death, and Miracles -- 10.1.3 Celsus on Jesus and Euripides' Bacchae -- 10.2 Origen's Response: Death as Divine Virtue -- 10.2.1 Origen on Dionysus, Noble Deeds, and Noble Deaths. Chapter 16 - Towards a Pious Poetics: New Euripidean Masks in Pseudo-Gregory's Christus patiens -- 16.1 Placing the Christus patiens between Euripides and Byzantium -- 16.2 The Passion and the Possibilities of Christian Tragedy -- 16.3 Conclusions -- Conclusions: Gathering up the Scattered Limbs -- Bibliography -- Literary Sources -- Other Ancient Sources -- Scholarly Works Cited -- Index of References -- Hebrew Bible with Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha -- New Testament -- Ancient Texts and Authors -- Other Ancient Sources -- Index of Subjects. |
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| ISBN: | 3161540786 |