Tales of Madness, Miracles, Death and Salvation: Analyzing the Corpus of Dionysian Myths from the Perspective of Malinowski’s Charter Theory By

Much has been written about the myths of Dionysus in the last two centuries. Books, articles, and even films have attempted to capture the spirit and the essence of the mad god. Writers and scholars find his paradoxical nature most intriguing. He is mortal yet divine, and he appears destructive but life-affirming. For the Greeks he is the synthesis of the forces of life that exist in nature. “He is the blood moving in the animal … the sap in the tree.”1 Dionysus is the life force and spirit of every creature. His connection to life is so strong that even the bonds of death do not end it for he is the god that can offer his followers life everlasting through the rites of his mystery cult. While he is a fertility god, his powers transcend the realm of earth much like Persephone, another earth goddess and queen of Hades who is portrayed as his mother in some myths. Tablets remaining from his mystery cults suggest that Dionysus served as a kind of intercessor who pleaded on behalf of his dead followers so that Persephone might assign them a pleasant dwelling in Hades.2 Thus, as the god of the life force, Dionysus is as rich and diverse as life itself, and for this reason the mad god will continue to confound and intrigue us. In this paper, I propose to examine eleven of the most commonly known myths of Dionysus from the perspective of Bronislav Malinowski’s Charter Theory to show that his theory has widespread applicability. Malinowski’s theory suggests that myths serve a very practical and not speculative purpose. For Malinowski, myths charter and confirm previously established rituals, beliefs, and institutions of a given society. Using his Charter Theory, I hope to illustrate that the myths of Dionysus have two essential functions. Firstly, they confirm for the Greek listener many aspects of the god himsel