Dionysus In Euripides Bacchae

To the Greek’s, the chorus was more important than the actors because it explained everything that was going on in the play and brought comedy relief. Every actor, playwright, civic sponsors, and chorus member were male. Out of thousands of plays written for the Greek theatre, only forty-six survived completely. Most of those plays come from the Athens during the fifth century BCE and from authors: Aeschylus (seven), Sophocles (seven), Euripides (eighteen), and Aristophanes (eleven) (Pearson pg.19). One of Euripides famous writings was a play called Bacchae. Bacchae is about Dionysus wanting to get revenge on his dead mother’s family, the family of Cadmus. Dionysus was born of Zeus and a mortal woman by the name of Semele. Zeus’s wife, Hera,
Greek dramas usually had a single theme plot with the story being one that the audience could recognize easily without having to decipher any subplots. Shakespeare, however, had many different plot threads through his plays with multiple story lines, and themes and goals (eHow.com). And because Greek plays only had one theme and plot, they only had one setting in their play and characters would not be able to travel far in them. In Greek drama, characters had to be considered “great” for them to be part of the play. The people who were chosen to act in Greek plays were usually military generals, royalty or supposed children of gods, and there were generally only three or four main characters. In Shakespeare plays, characters came from all walks of life, he used ghosts and fairy-type creatures, and most of the plays called for at least a dozen or more characters. Shakespeare and the Greeks subject matters were also vastly different, “Greek drama was almost always instructive and dealt with great matters. The plays were political or religious. Most of the subject matter came from histories or myths that the audience already knew, removing the need for much exposition. The plays explored the meaning behind these great events and focused on the story's moral and ethics. Shakespeare, on the other hand, borrowed widely from as many sources as he could find. His subject matter included the stories of private individuals and lovers as well as kings and nobles. He produced histories, but he also produced pastoral plays, and the subject could be as personal as a love affair or the paying of a bad debt. Shakespeare mixed comedy and tragedy within a single play, and some of his works defy an easy fit into one genre or another” (eHow.com). Lastly, Greek plays were performed in large outdoor amphitheaters for religious festivals, when