WordWealth: bacchanal

bac·cha·nal ,

n.

1. a follower of Bacchus. 2. a drunken reveler. 3. an occasion of drunken revelry; orgy; bacchanalia.

4. pertaining to Bacchus; bacchanalian.

[1530–40; < L Bacchānāl, equiv. to Bacch(us) + -ānāl, prob. as back formation from Bacchānālia; see BACCHANALIA]

—Syn.3. saturnalia, debauch, spree, carousal. (Random House Webster's Unabridged). Look at Thesaurus

A few weeks ago I was startled to see her in a buzzy new book of photographs by Frederic Brenner, called Jews/America/A Representation. She appears with her daughter, an individual of uncommon sweetness, and with five other mothers and daughters, in a photograph called "Jewish Lesbian Daughters of Holocaust Survivors, with Their Mothers, New York City, 1994." I swear. The photographer's victims are sheathed in black, arranged as partners in a circle, melodramatically lit, and shot from above. If I could, I would reach into this inane image from the great American bacchanal of identity (Hitler! Sappho! Naches!) and extract my family physically from the indignity. Instead I will satisfy myself with the dream of another shoot: "Jewish Straight Sons of Holocaust Survivors Who Think That Jewish Lesbian Daughters of Holocaust Survivors Are Missing the Point," which is that they are being exploited in a cheap culture game. —— Leon Wieseltier in Diarist: Shooting  Jews; The New Republic; December 9, 1996

It was a thrilling account, but again some of the thrills felt too easily achieved. Dawn broke with a rather predictable splendour - its rhythms rendered too literally - while the bacchanal acquired an unwelcome touch of military aggression. ... Some residual squareness of phrasing remained in the three movements from Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette symphony, and the Queen Mab scherzo could have been a good deal airier. Yet the BBCPO violas and cellos brought terrific tonal richness to the Love Scene, as did the first violins to the Capulet ball, where the whole orchestra contributed to a joyously swaggering momentum. —— David Fanning; Tortelier's Farewell is a Labour of Love; The Telegraph; May 13 2002

All first novels are traps of a sort, but if Tartt's cage was unusually gilded--The Secret History sold more than a million copies and established the writer, still in her twenties, as a publishing legend--it was also unusually constricting. Though critics celebrated Tartt's technical brilliance, they generally treated the book as a thriller, if an unusually well-written one, with all the condescension thus implied. The plot makes it easy to see why: a tightly knit group of eccentric college students, inspired by the Greeks, conduct a bacchanal during which (true to their source) they accidentally kill a local farmer. When their friend Bunny finds out about the murder, he blackmails them, and they decide the only way out is to kill him as well. —— Ruth Franklin; Morbid Longings; The New Republic; Jan 03, 2003

Bacchanalia

Bac·cha·na·li·a , n., pl. -li·a, -li·as. 1. (sometimes used with a pl. v.) a festival in honor of Bacchus. Cf. Dionysia; 2. (l.c.) a drunken feast; orgy.

[1625–35; < L equiv. to Bacch(us) + -ān(us) -AN + -ālia, neut. pl. of -ĀLIS -AL1; prob. modeled on volcānālia. See SATURNALIA]

—bac'cha·na'li·an, adj., n.

—bac'cha·na'li·an·ism, n.

orgy

or·gy , n., pl. -gies.

1. wild, drunken or licentious festivity or revelry.

2. any actions or proceedings marked by unbridled indulgence of passions: an orgy of killing.

3. orgies, (in ancient Greece) esoteric religious rituals, esp. in the worship of Demeter or Dionysus, characterized in later times by wild dancing, singing, and drinking.

4. Informal. a boisterous, rowdy party.

[1580–90; < MF orgie < L orgia (neut. pl.) secret rites < Gk órgia, akin to érgon WORK]

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