CriticaLink | Aristotle: Poetics | Terms

Dionysus

Dionysus, god of wine and ecstasy, was worshipped in festivals called Dionysia, which included performances of dithyrambic poetry, comedy, and tragedy. The Greater Dionysia in Athens, established by the ruler Pisistratus around 534 BCE, provided an occasion for performances of plays by all the major ancient playwrights.

• Aeschylus
• Aristophanes
• Euripides
• Sophocles

• anagnorisis
• catharsis
• character
• comedy
• complex plot
• complication
• denouement
• deus ex machina
• diction
• Dionysus
• dithyrambic poetry
• drama
• epic
• fear
• genre
• hamartia
• hexameter
• iambic
• medium
• mimesis
• mode
• narrative
• nomic poetry
• object
• pathos
• peripeteia
• phallic songs
• pity
• plot
• poetry
• simple plot
• song
• spectacle
• telos
• thought
• tragedy
• trope
• unities