Study Guide for "The Bacchae" of Euripides

Plot Summary of Euripides' The Bacchae
Terms to Know
Study Questions
Characters
Study Guide for Euripides' The Bacchae

Each year in Athens there was a religious and civic event that honored the god Dionysus. It was called the Great or City Dionysia. Although the festival honored Dionysus, the playwrights who competed wrote on a wide variety of topics, usually from myth and legend, but also from history, as in the case of the Persian War-themed tragedy with which Aeschylus first won the prize.

In 405 B.C. the City Dionysia at Athens featured Euripides' Dionysus-themed Bacchae. Normally, prize-winning tragedies resulted in wreaths for the playwright, but in the case of The Bacchae, the playwright was already dead. He had died a 75-year old man at the court of the king of Macedonia, as an exile from Athens. Natural death wasn't enough for his reputation. Eerily like the fate of Euripides' Pentheus, the ubiquitous "they" said a pack of hounds mangled Euripides.

In Greek tragedy, violence occurred off-stage with a messenger bringing the bad news. A chorus that sang and dance also offered opinions or commentary on the on-stage events and conversed with the actors.

The following are some pages on this site that may help you appreciate Euripides' Bacchae, especially if you are new to reading Greek tragedy. One additional tip I have used in reading tragedy in translation is to rewrite every line into my own words. This helps me focus and provides a condensed version for later reference.

It also forces me to make as much sense as I can of the dialogue. (When struggling with the Greek, my vocabulary lists present an almost word-for-word translation, so I don't have to paraphrase.)

Summary of Euripides' Bacchae

It is easy to see the Bacchae as divided into modern acts based on the episodes and stasima. Here is a quick summary of the acts. See if your line-by-line rewrite of the tragedy corresponds with this.

Study Questions

Among other points you should pay attention to when reading the Bacchae is how Euripides portrays the gods. Is Dionysus portrayed in the way someone who wanted to honor him at a festival held in his honor would do it? Did the fact of his exile from which location he had no possible opportunity to stage the play at the City Dionysia influence how he wrote? Scholars continue to argue such points, so don't expect to come up with the final answer, but think about these and more as you read.