Dionysus's Madness And Melancholy

This research is an attempt of image-studying from the perspective of culturalhistory.It aims to understand how Dionysian images become the medium of culturalmemory.Just like a "Memory Palace",in which scattered various images related toDionysus.They are tiny fragments of psychological experience about visual expression,reflecting different aspects of Western culture.The essay has two parts:the ecstasy of Dionysus and the melancholy of Dionysus.The first part is related to the "ecstatic"aspect of Dionysiac culture,which contains three chapters:In Chapter Ⅰ,through the lensof female dancers(Maenad/Nymph),we will examine how the "Pathosformeln"constantly coming back reveals the connection between times and cultures.The analysesof dance images by Aby Warburg and other art historians will help us to understand theinteraction of cultural memory and the writing of Art history.In Chapter Ⅱ,we can seethe process of the reconfiguration of images in the cultural memory with the example ofdrunk and ecstatic figures.In Chapter Ⅲ,we will explore the relation of text and imageboth as the medium of cultural history with the help of Bakhtin’s "Theory of Carnival".The second part will touch the "demonic" aspect of Dionysiac culture,we will explorehow the legend of Dionysus,full of violence,bloodiness and death,transformed intoChristian images.There are two chapters.The text related to Dionysus will be analysed inChapter Ⅳ in order to digest the deeper meaning beneath it.At last,through the Christianimages inspired by the culture of Dionysus,we can probe the secrets of creation of newimages with cultural memory and understand the intricate problem between the cult ofDionysus and the culture of Christianism.