Ecstatic Atoms

The archaic mind may be broadly described as one which is at home to the sorts of dualities which confuse the modern mind. This is intimated by the paradoxical qualities of ‘primal words’, and the porous boundaries between personal and external agency. ¹ Such dualities, oppositions, or contradictions find form in myth, tragedy, and analysis. ² Combining these forms, the mythic drama of Aeschylus’s Oresteian tragedy anticipates much that appears in Jung’s work, notably the theory of individuation. This coincidence of tragedy and individuation suggests a new opposition, namely that between the selfhood of the individuated subject and the loss of self in drama’s communal ekstasis. Can this be reconciled? To address this, I consider the roles of actor, character and audience, and the interaction between them. Naturally, this question of ecstatic individuation invokes the spirit of Nietzsche’s Dionysian and Apollonian, but I proceed without recourse to Nietzsche’s work (which is viewed sceptically by classicists), to focus instead on mediation between Jung and classical scholarship, and the role of individual in society.