The Bacchae

Euripides · 405 BCE · Play · Greek · Classical

Dionysus comes back to Thebes, his mother's city, disguised as a foreign holy man, and drives its women out into the mountains in ecstasy. Pentheus, the young king, refuses to admit the god's divinity and has the stranger arrested; the stranger goes quietly and begins to work on him. Euripides' last play, and repression's terrible bill.

Open The Bacchae in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.

Lineage

• ↓ Phèdre
  Jean Racine · 1677 CE · Play — shares sources with this
• ↓ Death and the King's Horseman
  Wole Soyinka · 1975 CE · Play — influenced by this
• ↓ Death in Venice
  Thomas Mann · 1912 CE · Short Story — alludes to this
• ↓ Major Barbara
  George Bernard Shaw · 1905 CE · Play — alludes to this

Attributes

Closest analogues

• Salomé
  Oscar Wilde · 1893 CE · Play

  46% · 11 shared
  PlayTragedyPower & CorruptionVanity & BeautyTragic ReversalFall (Tragedy)The FeastDismembermentvs Fate / Godsvs SelfTragic
• Arrow of God
  Chinua Achebe · 1964 CE · Novel

  43% · 9 shared
  TragedyPower & CorruptionFaith & DoubtRuler / KingTragic ReversalFall (Tragedy)The Maskvs Fate / GodsTragic
• Metamorphoses
  Ovid · 8 CE · Poem

  42% · 9 shared
  Power & CorruptionTransformationVanity & BeautyClassicalShapeshifterThe Beastvs Fate / Godsvs SelfMythic
• Oedipe
  Voltaire · 1718 CE · Play

  41% · 10 shared
  PlayTragedyPower & CorruptionFaith & DoubtRuler / KingTragic ReversalFall (Tragedy)vs Fate / Godsvs SelfTragic
• Antony and Cleopatra
  William Shakespeare · c. 1607 CE · Play

  41% · 9 shared
  PlayTragedyPower & CorruptionVanity & BeautyRuler / KingTragic ReversalThe Beastvs SelfTragic
• King Lear
  William Shakespeare · c. 1606 CE · Play

  38% · 9 shared
  PlayTragedyPower & CorruptionMadnessRuler / KingTragic ReversalFall (Tragedy)vs SelfTragic