Current research deals with the analysis of the difficult connection between two characters and literary works divided by over 2.500 thousand years of history and cultural differences – Dionysus in Euripides’s Bacchae and Elesin Oba in Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman. Notwithstanding different historical and social conditions, as well as author biographic specificities two pieces have many parallels in terms of their general idea and aesthetical vision that is transcendent to historical settings. This paradox can’t be best described implementing Nietzsche’s concept of ‘Dionysian’ vs. ‘Apollonian’ elements in Greek culture in particular and in world culture in general that he presented in his early work ‘Birth of Tragedy Out the Spirit of Music’ (Nietzsche, 1994). This essay will show that Dionysian elements in Nietzsche’s sense can be found in both literary works and this concept is very important for understanding such notions as rational and irrational.
Main characters: Dionysus and Elesin Oba
The connection of the two characters should be found in the connection between ‘tragic vision’ presented in both pieces though in different ways.
The role of Dionysus in Greek culture notwithstanding the fact that it was already established and institutionalized in the Greek pantheon was contested by different representatives of Greek art, Euripides one of them. The main question that Euripides seeks to answer in his drama is a connection between well-structured social order (Greek or in his case Athenian society) and irrational forces represented in the character of Dionysus. This move was characteristic of Euripides as the first representative of Greek tragic theatre tradition who created theater and aesthetic techniques characteristic of the modern theatre. In his analysis of tragedy Nietzsche particularly points to the fact that Euripides created premises for moving over classical ‘Dionysian’ tragic tradition creating ration theatre with well-weighted opposition and rational balancing between natural forces (Nietzsche 1994). Understanding Dionysius as he is presented in Greek culture thus relies on its opposition to ‘Apollonian’ origin, which is characterized by cold beauty, rationality, and other traits of settled and stable civilization.
Following these general premises, the Bacchae depicts the longstanding struggle between two opposing forces of order and unrestrained freedom (or release), the latter represented by the character of Dionysius. Dionysius himself provides the answer to this question. This God’s message to the people is that only in irrationality does the solidarity with heaven and god occurs and space for irrational should be allowed in society through performing rites of tragic unity between all people in Bacchae rituals.
The notion of metaphysic ritual and mystic unity with god is also developed in Soyinka’s novel later discussed in this essay and both are regarded as something barbaric and ‘out of reason’ in one case by Euripides and in other by British colonial authorities. In Bacchae, the denying of the irrational as Pentheus did leads to the demise of personality and society since denying the irrational is denying life itself and encircling it in the ‘second nature’ which leads to complete alienation of people (Adorno, Horkheimer, 1979). But Euripides seems to compromise the opposition between ‘Dionysian’ and ‘Apollonian’ showing the need for restraint and self-control, moderation and rationality in the characters of Pentheus and Thebes realizing it both through the plot and through literary expressive means which will be analyzed further. Thus, Nietzsche’s account of Euripides as the first not-Dionysian person in Greek theatre may be regarded as justified.
Dionysus is described as the god of mask, who office to his worshippers a possibility of becoming somebody else and achieve religious ecstasy through a theatric performance. Those, who gather in the theatrical circle of Dionysius immediately lose their identity as in the case of Pentheus who was reluctant and skeptical while watching Dionysian rites but when was asked Dionysius to join the circle lost control and his identity as rational personal and fully exposes his being to the drama and those consequences it has – namely the death. Thus, Dionysius rites present the destruction of all stable and social and celebration of life as it is seen in the unity with God, people, and soil. It is rebirth through death and this is fully explicated by the character of Dionysius. In the character of Dionysius, the duality of destructiveness and creativity is preserved. On the one hand, he destroys the royal palace and brings havoc, on the other hand, he brings gifts of the earth to people: honey, wine, etc.
Death and The King’s Horsemen by Soyinka presents other dimensions of the ‘Dionysian’- ‘Apollonian’ dichotomy of Nietzsche. The character of Elesin, the king Horseman, may be described as the victim of the ‘Apollonian’ clash with ‘Dionysian’.
According to the Yoruba tradition, the death of Chief should be followed by the death of his Horsemen presented by Elesin Oba in this play. This ritual is one of the central elements for understanding Yoruba culture, not contaminated by rational and humanistic approaches to life and death, and understands them as unity with native soil, tribe, and deity. In this perspective Yoruba culture though in many aspects different from Greek culture seem to share ‘Dionysian’ origin presented in passionate and mystic rituals.
The character of Elesin is a love-loving man who spends the final days of his life before ritual suicide in celebration and in joy. But British colonial authorities represented by local colonial administrator Mr. Pilkings interfere as they consider this ritual to be illegal and barbaric. British colonial authority thus can be described as a rational force that enforce the order and civilization principles, thus, in fact, represents ‘Apollonian’ origin. This intrusion of the irrational leads to catastrophic consequences for the tribal culture as it ruins the foundation of symbolic exchange between life and death and ruins cosmic order (Gilbertova, 1995).
Elesin is the main victim of this being accused by the tribe representatives as being too attached to the earth and uneager to fulfill accusations. The tragedy goes further when Elesin’s son Olunde commits ritual suicide to remove the blame and restore the honor of his family. Elesin kills himself understanding the consequences of his actions. The ‘Apollonian’ precludes Elesin to realize the ritual and thus leads to those consequences to social and symbolic order in society that Euripides tied with the complete demise of Dionysian and deep rationalization of all aspects of life. In Death and King’s Horsemen, this of course represents the metaphor of ruining the impact of British imperialists on Yoruba culture. The intrusion of ‘Apollonian’ is evident in Elesin’s character since we don’t know whether he wanted to commit suicide or not, which itself represents tragedy. But his deep connection with ‘Dionysian’ element can be found in the following fragment:
Elesin…. You all know
What I am.
Praise-singer. That rock which turns its open lodes
Into the path of lightning. A gay
Thoroughbred whose stride disdains
To falter though an adder reared Suddenly in his path.
Elesin. My rein is loosened
I am master of my Fate.
When the hour comes Watch me dance along the narrowing path
Glazed by the soles of my great precursors.
My sole is eager. I shall not turn aside.(DKH, i. 152-153).
Thus, both artworks and characters provide us with interesting examples of difficult interrelation between ‘Dionysian’ and ‘Apollonian’ which I meet in all manifestations of culture.
References
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music. New York: Penguin Classics, 1994.
Adorno, Theodore and Horkheimer, Max. Dialectic of Enlightenment. London: Verso, 1979.
Wole, Soyinka. Six Plays. London: Methuen, 1984.
Gilbertova, Iva. Wole Soyinka: Death and The King’s Horseman. Sbornik Praci Filozoficke Fakulty Brnenske Univerzity Studia Minora Facultatis Philosophicae Universitatis Brunens S 1, 1995.