The Cult of the Apollonian and the Dionysian in Ancient Greek Religion as Reflected in Edith Wharton’s Novels

Abstract

The two basic conflicting forces throughout Wharton’s tragic novels have a great affinity with the cult of the Apollonian and Dionysian in ancient Greek religion and in Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy. On the one hand, it is the Apollonian ideal of civilized society and individual restraint, which is a beautiful illusion maintained in a bright appearance. When it encounters Dionysus, it is its defensive social rules, the social restrictions, and oppression it imposes on individuals; on the other hand, it is the awakening of Dionysian primitive passion, which tears off the social and individual protective veil of Apollo and reaches the Dionysian tragic cognition at the root of existence, requiring breaking social barriers and indulging the vitality of primitive nature. In this paper, the cult of the Apollonian and Dionysian in ancient Greek religion and as defined by Nietzsche in his The Birth of Tragedy is used to analyze the inner conflicts in the protagonists of Wharton’s tragic novels and the patterns of tragedy in each of her studied novels. Through such archetypal criticism of religious cults in Wharton’s major works, this paper attempts to refute most of the negative criticism of her novels.

Keywords

• the Apollonian
• the Dionysian
• Edith Wharton
• ancient Greek religion
• Nietzsche’s <i>The Birth of Tragedy</i>
• archetypal criticism