1) dithyramb: A frenzied, impassioned choric hymn and dance of ancient Greece in honor of Dionysus. An irregular poetic expression suggestive of the ancient Greek dithyramb. A wildly enthusiastic speech or piece of writing.
2) inauguration: to put someone into an official position with a ceremony; to put something into use or action officially; to mark the beginning of a new period, style or activity
3) dramatist: a person who writes plays
4) snobbishly: like a snob
B. Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in audiences. While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the term tragedy often refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western civilization. That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a powerful effect of cultural identity and historical continuity—"the Greeks and the Elizabethans, in one cultural form; Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as Raymond Williams puts it.
From its origins in the theatre of ancient Greece 2500 years ago, from which there survives only a fraction of the work of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides; through its singular articulations in the works of Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Jean Racine, and Friedrich Schiller to the more recent naturalistic tragedy of August Strindberg; Samuel Beckett's modernist meditations on death, loss and suffering; Müller's postmodernist reworkings of the tragic canon; and Joshua Oppenheimer's incorporation of tragic pathos in his nonfiction film, The Act of Killing (2012), tragedy has remained an important site of cultural experimentation, negotiation, struggle, and change. A long line of philosophers—which includes Plato, Aristotle, Saint Augustine, Voltaire, Hume, Diderot, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, Benjamin,[8] Camus, Lacan, and Deleuze—have analysed, speculated upon, and criticized the genre.
In the wake of Aristotle's Poetics (335 BCE), tragedy has been used to make genre distinctions, whether at the scale of poetry in general (where the tragic divides against epic and lyric) or at the scale of the drama (where tragedy is opposed to comedy). In the modern era, tragedy has also been defined against drama, melodrama, the tragicomic, and epic theatre. Drama, in the narrow sense, cuts across the traditional division between comedy and tragedy in an anti- or a-generic deterritorialization from the mid-19th century onwards. Both Bertolt Brecht and Augusto Boal define their epic theatre projects (non-Aristotelian drama and Theatre of the Oppressed, respectively) against models of tragedy. Taxidou, however, reads epic theatre as an incorporation of tragic functions and its treatments of mourning and speculation.
C. Athena's birth
Although Athena appears before Zeus at Knossos — in Linear B, as “Mistress Athena” — in the Classical Olympian pantheon, Athena was remade as the favorite daughter of Zeus, born fully armed from his forehead. The story of her birth comes in several versions. In the one most commonly cited, Zeus lay with Metis, the goddess of crafty thought and wisdom, but he immediately feared the consequences. It had been prophesied that Metis would bear children more powerful than the sire, even Zeus himself. In order to prevent this, Zeus swallowed Metis. He was too late: Metis had already conceived.
Eventually Zeus experienced an enormous headache; Prometheus, Hephaestus, Hermes, Ares, or Palaemon cleaved Zeus’ head with the double-headed Minoan axe, the labrys. Athena leaped from Zeus’ head, fully grown and armed, with a shout — “and pealed to the broad sky her clarion cry of war. And Ouranos trembled to hear, and Mother Gaia…”. Plato, in the Laws, attributes the cult of Athena to the culture of Crete, introduced, he thought, from Libya during the dawn of Greek culture. Classical myths thereafter note that Hera was so annoyed at Zeus for having produced a child that she conceived and bore Hephaestus by herself, but in Philostratus the Elder, Imagines 2. 27 Hera "rejoices" at Athena's birth "as though Athena were her daughter also." In accordance with this mythological tradition, Plato, in Cratylus gave the etymology of her name as signifying “the mind of god”, theou noesis. The Christian apologist of the 2nd century Justin Martyr takes issue with those pagans who erect at springs images of Kore, whom he interprets as Athena:
“They said that Athena was the daughter of Zeus not from intercourse, but when the god had in mind the making of a world through a word= his first thought was Athena.”
C. Movie - The Great Gatsby
D. Dionysus's story
Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Semele, and he was the only god with a mortal parent. Zeus went to Semele in the night, unseen by human eyes, but could be felt as a divine presence. Semele was pleased to be the lover of a god, even though she did not know which one. Word soon got around and Hera quickly assumed who was responsible. She went to Semele in disguise and convinced her she should see her lover as he really was. When Zeus visited her again, she made him promise to grant her one wish. She went so far as to make him swear on the River Styx that he would grant her request. Zeus was madly in love and agreed. She then asked him to show her his true form. Zeus was unhappy knowing what was about to happen, but bound by his oath, he had no choice. He appeared in his true form and Semele was instantly burnt to a crisp by the sight of his glory. Zeus managed to rescue the fetal Dionysus and stitched him into his thigh until he would be ready to be born. His birth from Zeus conferred immortality upon him.
Hera, still jealous of Zeus' infidelity and the fact that Dionysus was alive, arranged for the Titans to kill him. The Titans ripped him to pieces; however, Rhea brought him back to life. After this, Zeus arranged for his protection and gave him to the mountain nymphs to be raised.
Dionysus wandered the world actively spreading his cult. He was accompanied by the Maenads, wild women, flush with wine, shoulders draped with a fawn skin, carrying rods tipped with pine cones. While other gods had temples to be worshipped at, the followers of Dionysus worshipped him in the woods. There, they might go into a state of ecstasy and madness, ripping apart and eating raw any animal they might come upon.
Dionysus was also one of the very few characters able to bring a dead person back from the underworld. Even though he had never seen Semele, he was concerned for her. Eventually, he journeyed into the underworld to find her. He faced down Thanatos and brought her back to Mount Olympus.
Dionysus became one of the most important gods in everyday life and was associated with several key concepts. One was rebirth after death; his dismemberment by the Titans and his return to life was symbolically echoed in viticulture, where the vines must be pruned back sharply, and then become dormant in winter for them to bear fruit. Another concept was that under the influence of wine, one could feel possessed by a greater power. Unlike other gods, Dionysus was not merely a god to be worshipped, but he was also present within his followers; at those times, a man would possess supernatural powers and was able for things he would not be able to do otherwise.
The festival for Dionysus was held in the spring when vines would start bearing leaves. It became one of the most important events of the year and its primary focal point was the theater. Most of the great Greek plays were initially written to be performed at the feast of Dionysus. All participants, writers, actors, spectators, were regarded as sacred servants of Dionysus during the festival.
More: The Wanderings of Dionysus, Semele, Theogony, Zeus
Dionysus Is also called Bacchus, Dionysos.
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