Quest of the Spirit: From Suffering to Acceptance

81. History and Diversity: Carlton Hayes

                                                              Death and Rebirth in Literature

          Among the most prominent themes in literature is that of death-and-rebirth. The character of a man who casts aside or dies to the vices of this earthly existence in favor of a virtuous life and the joyous expectation of the hereafter typifies this ideal. The concept of death-and- rebirth was familiar to the Greeks. Carlton Hayes suggests in Ancient and Medieval History (Macmillan 1935),"Every four years there was great celebration called the Greater Panathenaea, with races, dancing, athletic sports and public recitations of Homer's epics. A new festival was the Dionysia, in honor of the god Dionysus. Dionysus, it may be explained, was a god who had supposedly been torn to pieces by Titans, but reborn. In him, his worshippers saw a symbol of the mystery of death and life and a hope of future life. With Dionysus was associated Orpheus, the divinely sweet musician, who was reputed to have been the founder of a religious sect which believed the soul was reborn again and again until it achieved perfect purity and divinity. The connection with Dionysus is obvious. Demeter, too, the goddess of fertility, seemed to represent the same idea, for each year Pluto, god of the dead, took her daughter Persephone to the underworld for six months, and each year Demeter received Persephone back into life." As Carlton suggests, "Through all these myths runs the idea of death and rebirth, of sin and purification. Many of the common people in Greece became worshippers of Dionysus and Demeter, and followers of Orpheus. Once a year pilgrims from Athens thronged to Eleusis by the Sacred Road to be initiated into the so-called Eleusinian mysteries. After being purified by bathing in the sea, worshippers were initiated by being permitted to witness a sort of pageant and to behold various sacred objects, about which the greatest secrecy was maintained. These events occurred as early as fifth century B.C. , along the slopes of the Athenian Acropolis in the Theatre of Dionysus, which held 14,000 spectators" (Carlton 155-156).

                                                                                       Works Cited

Hayes, Carlton, Parker Moon. Ancient and Medieval History. New York: Macmillan, 1935.