Dionysiac Poetics & Euripides’ Bacchae

In his play “Bacchae, ” Euripides chooses as his central figure the god who crosses the boundaries among god, man, and beast, between reality and imagination. Thus Euripides explores what in tragedy is able to reach beyond the social and historical context from which tragedy itself rises. This volume presents the argument that the Dionysiac poetics of the play characterize a world view and an art form that can admit logical contradictions and hold them in suspension.