the bacchae of euripides a communion rite

Fischer-Lichte consequently draws upon this scholarship, and in particular three interpretations of the play which read the tragedy as enacting-or perverting-a sacrificial ritual, namely those of Walter Burkert, René Girard, and Jan Kott.

As Fischer-Lichte explains, classicists and theoreticians began to show a renewed interested in Euripides’ tragedy simultaneously with the theatrical rediscovery of the play. Fischer-Lichte argues that the events in The Bacchae are analogous to the political, social, and cultural challenges that certain locales experienced between the 1960s and the present, and that this accounts-in part-for the recent popularity of the play. The first explores how the recent popularity of Euripides’ play can be attributed to the globalizing process. There are two main strands to Fischer-Lichte’s argument that permeate her case studies.

Fischer-Lichte provides a rich and vivid analysis of these case studies, which makes for a clear and readable monograph that will appeal to her broad interdisciplinary readership and will be of use to students and scholars of classical reception alike.

Fischer-Lichte’s book features a concentrated analysis of nine productions, many of which have previously received minimal critical attention and represent neglected geographical locations for the study of classical reception, including, for example, South America, eastern Europe, and Asia. 1 Erika Fischer-Lichte takes this production as the starting point for her monograph Dionysus Resurrected: Performances of Euripides’ The Bacchae in a Globalizing World, and seeks to explain why in light of the almost complete absence of the play on international stages prior to the 1960s, it has since experienced a resurgence in popularity and has now been staged innumerable times. We are all familiar with the significance of Euripides’ Bacchae for the contemporary history of classical performance reception, thanks to the positioning of Richard Schechner’s Dionysus in 69 as a watershed production in Hall, Macintosh and Wrigley’s Dionysus Since 69.

The bacchae of euripides a communion rite