Dionysus Dendrites

Trees in Euripides’ Bacchae

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21722326
AutoresEmma Bentley (Durham University, autor correspondente)
Ano2025
Volume29
Fascículo2
Páginas141-154
Data de publicação2025-04-03
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoGreen Letters (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1468-8417 • E-ISSN: 2168-1414
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14688417.2025.2516235
OpenAlexW4411097147
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas22

This article reads Euripides’ Bacchae as a play about the relationships, dependencies, and antagonisms between trees, humans, and the gods. On Mount Cithaeron, where much of the narrated action unfolds, trees embody the ambivalence of Dionysus and act as both participants and victims of his conflict with Pentheus. Their significance extends beyond narrative action as Euripides draws upon real human-arboreal relations within and around the Attic landscape, in religious and theatrical rituals, and in mythic and poetic traditions. Bacchae’s most striking instance of arboreal violence, the uprooting of a towering fir, exemplifies the complexity of these entanglements, both real and imagined. While human and divine desires to control the landscape necessitate ecological violence, the forest is also a point of continuity between mythic and contemporary time, and survives even when the Theban state is thrown into disarray

Art · Literature · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Philosophy