The Bacchic-Chor(a)ic Chronotope: Dionysus, Chora and Chorality in the Fifth Stasimon of Sophocles’ Antigone

The Bahktinian chronotope, Lacanian theory, and Kristeva’s chora, along with concepts from Derrida and others, combined with research into choreia, Dionysus, rituality, metatheater, performativity and, last not least, philological and literary close-reading, all aided in determining a specific Bacchic chronotope in archaic and classical choral song culture, a new structural interplay of time and space in Greek literature. It is deeply rooted in chorality and choric culture. Dionysus as the total Other, the unconscious, the god of the middle-ground, of mediation and transformation, serves, in a way, as the emblem of this chor(a)ic constellation. From chora emerges choros, his special medium of vitality in performativity. The Bacchic chronotope is permeable, hybrid, fluid and shifting. Moreover, his chora is a space of arrival in procession where the god transgresses boundaries in sudden epiphany. After identifying briefly the major features of the Bacchic chronotope in the parodos of Bacchae the main focus of the paper is on the fifth stasimon of Antigone, an exemplary tragic song in this regard. This Bacchic chronotope is a whirl of concentric choruses extending even to the cosmic level. It is highly metatragic and a powerful mise en abyme, since it references back to the choral performance executed in honor of Dionysus and displayed in the orchestra of the Athenian theater of Dionysus.