Looking for Dionysus

Where is Dionysus and why is recognition of him so problematic?

Any of us whom have read about – and inevitably become enthralled by – the wild, chaotic accounts of Dionysiac frenzy soon turn our minds to a study of Dionysian qualities in our own modern day culture. We begin to wonder where Dionysus and his followers can be found, and whether we would recognise them even if we did stumble upon them.

As Henry from Donna Tartt’s The Secret History says of finding Dionysus ‘It cannot just be done, you have to believe it’. Searching for Dionysus – even on a literary level – requires faith, it necessitates a certain surrender of one’s own principles and instinctive beliefs to an intuitive probing through the forces of nature and, more productively, of humankind. We must be willing to ‘submit ourselves to an unknown fear’. No one can simply stumble across Dionysus, they have to be actively pursuing him as he wanders through humanity releasing his frenzy upon the world.

Recognition of Dionysus is also a factor to be taken in consideration when embarking on a search for him. Dionysus is a God of disguise, of pretence and of deceit. His qualities are so much part of the human identity that perhaps we look directly through him, look too deeply into ourselves, rather then at the most superficial manifestations of the Dionysian spirit in our personalities. Sins, such as gambling or drunkenness, which have become commonly practised – and therefore mostly accepted – reflect a shadow of the Dionysian spirit in our everyday lives.

‘Nietzsche says that when man loses a sense of whither he is going, he may try to overcome his feeling of emptiness using ‘intoxication by music, intoxication by cruelty’.’ Youth culture most actively pursues this spirit. Popular pursuit after out of body experiences using intoxication and music – whilst in large crowds – in which all participants share the same common goal, that of pleasure, clearly displays Dionysian tendencies. Our culture is becoming increasingly driven by pursuit for entertainment. Whilst we are no longer searching for the physical embodiment of a God, we are instead chasing the apparatus with which to find him.

Dionysus can also be found in the Christian concept of the devil, or Satan. This spirit capable of leading humankind astray, of tempting them away from Godly principles to corrupt their souls has become the Christian form of Dionysus. In this way, Dionysus has come to represent evil and Apollo has become his good, righteous counterpart.

While the general belief in the imminent coming of judgement day and Christ has died out, fervour for religion and religious principles has been replaced by a genuine lack of human identity and purpose. Holbrook – writing on literary psychology – states ‘the present evident tendency towards extremism, violence, gross indecency and moral inversion… has developed out of a loss of faith, not only religious faith, but faith of any kind in human qualities and imagination.’ He asserts that nihilistic environment is a requisite for this ‘loss of faith’, but either way brutality and cruelty in our culture is ‘a manifestation of having nothing to say, and of a loss of confidence in trying to say anything.’ The chaos and nihilistic madhouse imagery of our modern times are displays of Dionysian worship – not in the underground – but out in public, and across the board.

The presence of Dionysus in literature is a valuable tool in finding and identifying Dionysus. Whether distinct representations, the portrayal of evil versus good, or – commonly – within characteristics of the persons in the plot, Dionysus can be found in many settings and situations.

In Donna Tartt’s The Secret History one is tempted to see Julian or Henry as fulfilling this role, yet some doubts remain. Charles and Camilla, Francis, at first Bunny and later even Richard are all involved in the murders, there are personal traits in all of the characters of the novel which reflect the Dionysian spirit. I have no doubts that each of these students, and Julian himself, are alien to their preppy surroundings, that they are characteristic of the types of people capable of recognising Dionysus’ presence, perhaps because they were trained – encouraged – to do so. Julian’s role in the novel is indispensable in introducing the students to Dionysus. In the same way as Dostoyevsky’s Underground man is conscious of the devil, Julian’s students are being made aware of Dionysus, more importantly perhaps, the Dionysian element in the human spirit or nature. In both accounts this directly goes on to affect their behaviour and mental perception of right and wrong, of the world broadly.

In one of his tutorials Julian teaches: ‘it’s a temptation for any intelligent person … to murder the primitive, emotive, appetitive self. But that is a mistake.’ Julian uses the word ‘murder’ here in a metaphorical sense, a killing off or distancing from the primitive, emotional self. But is it not literal murder of one’s self by denying and repressing these primitive emotions? In this way Julian was right, to murder this part of the self is a mistake.

The murders in the novel goes on to symbolise the refusal of the students to murder their own selves, the consequences bearing heavily not only upon themselves but upon surrounding, more repressed souls. When Henry is driven to suicide, we are frustratingly unaware of his last words, which could perhaps clear up the case of missing identity displayed in the novel. Then again, it is possible that Tartt is using the characters actions as a manifestation of Holbrook’s ‘loss of identity’, previously mentioned, in describing the students’ violent actions, and fatal outcomes.

Euripides came to recognise the Dionysian spirit at work in humanity, and demonstrated directly in The Bacchae. It is alarmingly suspicious – to the more superstitious of us – that out of the few Euridipes plays to survive, The Bacchae was one of them. It is just as interesting that Bacchic rites met most opposition and attempted repression from males, gaining a considerable support base in the female gender. Regardless, the play does not intend to serve solely as an analysis of gender in relation to Dionysian recognition. It is instead an assessment of a problem that deeply concerned the Greek spirit and culture, the conflict between rationality and chaotic displays of the repressed self.

In the same way the title of The Bacchae conveys the idea of female Dionysian worship, Dionysus’ own identity as a male is no mistake either. The perception of him as male gives him the ability to procreate versions of himself, to sow his seed amongst us – humankind – and therefore become part of humanity, even long after his ostensible disappearance from the world.

Looking for Dionysus outside of the literary world, though, requires something more then simple analytical skills. Again it is a necessity to be actively seeking him for him to seek you.

In the case of Shakespeare’s ‘unknown fear’, we have to d

ecipher whether or not this fear is truly ‘unknown’ to us. Our minds are very conscious of Dionysus’ existence. The fact that we would rather label it as an ‘unknown fear’ reveals humankinds’ general hesitancy to recognise it, though some of us are more susceptible to the Dionysian spirit then others or perhaps just more willing to examine the repressed part of the human psyche. This is understandable though, as ‘any approach to psychic reality is so disturbing to us, even to begin to explore such problems of existence… often rouses fierce resistance and opposition’.

The people in whom this spirit is most evident are described by Keats as having a ‘Negative Capability’ or ‘being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason’. They are also described by Nietzsche’s ‘Strong Pessimism’. Strongly pessimistic people – or people with a highly tuned ‘Negative Capability’ – do not last long in this Appollonian world. This world dedicated to beauty, technical advance and of scientific rationality, boasts no fear, only in refusal to recognise this fear. Nietzsche recognises that this society views the ‘decadence, warp and weakened instincts’ of a pessimistic personality as weakness. Yet assuredly this unconventional grasp on existence instead displays a gift, by which the individual comes to perceive the world in a different way.

This unique ability, so incomprehensible to those of us who are not truly pessimistic by nature, does inevitably change that individual’s perception of self worth and, as a result, the reduced value they place upon their existence. It is, however, this indifferent outlook on life – characteristic of ‘strong pessimism’ – that seemingly offers freedom. Such a person spends their life chasing their fears, not hiding from them or trying to find rational explanations for them. They throw themselves into their own worst nightmares, seemingly unconcerned for the consequences, which are always eventually fatal. This freedom from the cares of human existence displays terrific strength, strength that in nature is inhuman.

This inhumanity is what Dionysus characterises: the animalistic and the suppressed aspects of human existence. Pessimism – although very rarely to the intensity mentioned previously – occurs naturally in our being. The decisions that we recklessly – but more ridiculously – repeatedly chose to make reveal this.

Every time we push the accelerator down on a wet road, every time we decide to have ‘just one more’ drink and every time we light a cigarette or swallow a pill – every time we do these things – Dionysus is dancing around us with glee. Sometimes he lets us see another day unharmed, other times he wont.

Dionysus is still very much with us, even in this age. He is not just present in our literature – our arts – but in our very being, pulling the strings that control our lives still. Dionysus is the embodiment of the spirits in the world that we – as part of this technical, apparently rational age – try to ignore, imagining them to be invisible. And as many have seen throughout time, ignorance of his power is even more fatal.

Life is like walking on a tile floor with wet feet, and Dionysus is the water. Without him – yes – we could walk, but we chose to have him present, we refuse to dry him up and throw him aside. We do this because he is so naturally part of us that we could not imagine a world without the Dionysian spirit.

The idea of the religious concept of paradise or heaven is so far removed from us that we give up on it, succumbing instead to Dionysus and the perilous lifestyle he offers. Unable to completely discard the ideals of heaven and paradise, we cling to the opposite workings of the Dionysian force, Apollonianism. It is the Apollonian spirit we use to counteract the Dionysus within us, the Dionysus in control of our lives. It is the Apollonian spirit that holds our culture and our society together. Which leads us to wonder at this stage how much longer these ties will last – for how much longer will the Dionysian spirit be held back by the superficial Apollonian spirit and, just like the students in The Secret History, who of us will survive its outworking.