Un re smarrito nel labirinto del proprio palazzo. Sulla figura di Penteo nelle «Baccanti» di Hofmannsthal

Hugo von Hofmannsthal intermittently worked on a drama based on the Bacchae from 1892 to 1918, but never completed it and only about thirty notes dealing with the characters, the plot and a few scenic details have survived. Looking at these notes, it is possible to hypothesise that the protagonist of the tragedy was king Pentheus, whose destructive existence and violent death by sparagmòs, the sacrificial Dionysian ritual of dismemberment, were meant to acquire a symbolically paradigmatic value. In Hofmannsthal’s projected drama, Pentheus is characterized as an authentic rationalist, an upholder of the indivisibility of the individual ego, and at the same time as an insecure and neurotic king who dreams of dominating reality but ends up getting lost in his own labyrinthian palace.