Dionysus

DAVID STOCKHOFF · 09 Dec 2010, 18:58 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (DAVID STOCKHOFF)
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 10:58:14 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (urth) Dionysus
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTinWEFYDf5prC_RxJc+Jo52y8iEmp6t0Ax-ZXH-1 at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <293776.60756.qm at web84103.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Just what I was thinking. And these vines are on another planet and seem to be parasitic---regardless, they are not?and cannot be?of the grape family, nor ivy, nor any other we know. It seems unfair to hold their fundamental nongrapiness against them.
A science fiction writer who luvs him some classical references needs a little leeway. Is a manned rocket not also a chariot of fire?

--- On Thu, 12/9/10, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Dionysus
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Date: Thursday, December 9, 2010, 12:50 PM

On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 9:46 AM, Andrew Mason
<andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>
>> So...we agree that he's is the god of the "vine", not just grape vines.
>> I do not believe specific species of vines mattered to Wolfe for this
>> association one little bit.
>
> I find that most improbable. The title 'god of the vine' is a
> translation of Greek and Latin phrases which referred to the grape
> vine. Dionysus was the god of wine and of grapes and so of the plant
> from which they come, the vine, in the historic sense of that term. He
> is not the god of climbing plants generally. (There seems to be a
> difference between British and American usage here. To me, 'vine'
> primarily means grape vine, and can by extension mean other plants
> that resemble it. I get the sense that to Americans it just means
> climbing plant, without grapes having any special precedence.
> According to the OED the wider sense is first attested in 1563, but
> doesn't become widespread until the 18th century, and is then
> distinctively American. )

But do recall, please, that Wolfe is an American writer. (I almost
wrote "an _essentially_ American writer," but realized that, while
that is my impression, I have no real data to back it up.) As such, he
might be expected to use "vine" in the American sense.

Against this, of course, is the fact that he is steeped in the Classics.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
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