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Analysis of institutional authors

Baldwin, OliverAuthor

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September 15, 2025
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Bacchic rhythm: the Dionysian in Seneca’s Medea, Mérida 1933

Publicated to: Forum Classicorum: Perspectivas Y Avances Sobre El Mundo Clásico. 1205 - 1212 - 2021-01-01 (), DOI:

Authors:

Baldwin, Oliver
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Abstract

Friedrich Nietzsche’s ideas in The Birth of Tragedy (1872) greatly impacted on avant-garde European theatre in the early 20th century. Chorus, music, movement and on-stage masses emerged as formulas to achieve the desired Dionysian dissolution of the individual within a collective, and ultimately universal, unity. The present paper explores the application of the Dionysian element in the production of Seneca’s Medea, at the Roman Theatre in Mérida, in 1933. Specifically, three elements used by its director, Cipriano Rivas Cherif, will be analysed: movement, music and collectivity. Their combination aimed towards a reconstruction of the ancient tragic experience through the Dionysian and its ultimate result: the disintegration of individuality within the collective and tragic universality. This paper will thus demonstrate how the 1933 Spanish performance of Seneca’s tragedy Medea appears in the history of European theatre, and more specifically in the history of the dramatic reception of Greco-Roman tragedy, as one of the great Dionysian spectacles ever performed.
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Keywords

ArteCiencias jurídicasFilologíasHumanidades

Quality index

Leadership analysis of institutional authors

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (BALDWIN, OLIVER) .

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