In “The Shephearde’s Calender”, a pastoral that in many ways is shaped by Virgil’s Aeneid as well as diverges in the inclusion of Christianity. Nonetheless, through the familiarity of the pastoral Spenser authored a landscape he envisioned, for what he deemed, as most benefactory for a more Protestant England. A country in which he was both indebted to serve and therefore to the best of his abilities try to shape through his authorship. However, accomplishing his goal was a risky game in the feudal system period that governed his world. A game of wordplay, which teeters on the brink of life and death for Spenser at the consciences of the those who hold the power. Nevertheless, Spenser consummates a plan that allows him to an extent to retain a degree of plausible deniability while at the same time subvert the minds of his Queen and governing nobles whose decisions sway the sociopolitical world. The goal is accomplished through several literary devices, however, this paper will focus on the way in which moulding the male character Colin Clout into an androgynous figure allowed Spencer to use him as a framing effect, whereby, using logos reasoning Colin bent the rules of normativity in masculinity and thereby can use this …show more content…
However, it is through Colin’s song that a more complex characterization of his psyche is constructed. The initial framing of Colin’s character as a male who is unafraid of his feelings sets the reader who also views stereotypical gender roles as intrusive and therefore allows the reader to sympathize with Colin. This would of been inherent in Queen Elizabeth’s reading being a woman leader in a patriarchal society. However, Colin’s divergent androgynous qualities incisively change during the song to that of a young lustful boy with seemingly misogynistic undertones. In the first stanza of the song he
A twenty-first century reading of the Iliad and the Odyssey will highlight a seeming lack of justice: hundreds of men die because of an adulteress, the most honorable characters are killed, the cowards survive, and everyone eventually goes to hell. Due to the difference in the time period, culture, prominent religions and values, the modern idea of justice is much different than that of Greece around 750 B.C. The idea of justice in Virgil’s the Aeneid is easier for us to recognize. As in our own culture, “justice” in the epic is based on a system of punishment for wrongs and rewards for honorable acts. Time and time again, Virgil provides his readers with examples of justice in the lives of his characters. Interestingly, the meaning of justice in the Aeneid transforms when applied to Fate and the actions of the gods. Unlike our modern (American) idea of blind, immutable Justice, the meanings and effects of justice shift, depending on whether its subject is mortal or immortal.
COMPARE AND CONTRAST THE PORTRAYAL OF THE GODS IN VIRGIL'S AENEID AND OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. There is a significant difference in the treatment of the gods in the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses, even though both authors were writing in the epic tradition. Virgil wrote his Aeneid in the last ten years of his life, between 29BC and 19BC, after the Battle of Actium, in 31BC, which was significant, as it established Octavian as the sole emperor, Augustus, of Rome. The Aeneid is a celebration of Augustus' achievements and rejoices in the development of Rome. There is a great sense of political propaganda, as well as an historical element, as it illustrates the origins of the Roman people.
Euripides’ Bacchae presents a challenge to the identity of the Athenian male citizen. The tragedy undermines masculinity and traditional gender roles by exposing their vulnerability and easy transgression, implicates Athenian ideals of rationality and self-control in the fall of Thebes’ royal household, and complicates the concept of what it means to be a citizen. With Athens’ defeat in the Peloponnesian War looming, Euripides represents the Athenian anxiety as they faced their potential destruction and loss of their city and their identity.
In the opening books of the Aeneid, Virgil presents many different characters that play important roles and have influences on Aeneas’s journey. This includes not only mortal men and women, but also Gods and Goddesses. Throughout the plot, Virgil constantly addresses political issues through the actions of the characters. Of these characters, the female figures are often portrayed in a negative way. For example, they tend to act emotionally and in a way contrary to knowledge. This implies that women’s participation in politics may lead to negative consequences. Virgil shows women’s negative impact on politics by examining their unfavorable characteristics, such as irrationality, impulsive behaviors, and the selfish desires that often motivate their actions.
Shakespeare's King Lear has been the source of much contention as to the way in which the text can be read. The play originally was written for the Jacobean audience of Shakespeare's time, but since then has taken on many other readings. These new readings are produced to comment on issues in the society in which it is explored. Readings encompass a wide range of ideas - from the Dominant reading, the manner in which Shakespeare's audience would have perceived the text, to feminist ideals. The various readings are influenced by the context in which they are discussed. In particular the dominant and feminist readings of King Lear both perceive the text in different contexts; the dominant following the traditional Jacobean interpretation as it was originally written, and the feminist reading pursuing a need for the lack of a patriarchal society in the twentieth century. King Lear can be read in a variety of ways, achieving a set perspective that suits the reader.
The Aeneid is essentially about Aeneas and his pietaś to find Rome. Within this poem there are many female characters that play important roles towards Rome’s future; the female characters in the Aeneid are primarily figures of chaos, hostility and opposition in the Roman future. Juno, the queen of the gods plays a major role in the chaos Aeneas faces when finding Rome. Juno does not like the Trojans and attempts to stall Aeneas from his pietaś at every step. Dido is the Queen of Carthage, she falls in love with Aeneas and wants him to live with her in Carthage which prolongs his journey to find Rome. Amata, is the Queen of Laurentum, she struggles to stop Aeneas from marrying her daughter Lavina which would complete his pietaś to find Rome.
These unequal concepts are crucial factors that ultimately lead these characters to alter their standardized gender role, and commit heinous actions that are perceived to be against their morality. Shakespeare implements the notion of gender role’s discrepancy, prevalent in his period of time, through his characters to perpetuate and empower their social status and power.
In the book the Oresteia by Aeschylus gender plays an important role throughout the story as the themes of vengeance, and family ties are brought to light. Aeschylus’s portrayal of Clytemnestra and Electra shows the roles women upheld in Greek society as well as their wide variety of feelings when compared to men. These two women are at opposite ends of the spectrum showing the reader how one woman may run the house and everything in it, while one suffers silently.
Montrose, Louis A. "Shaping Fantasies: Figurations of Gender and Power in Elizabethan Culture." Shakespearean Criticism. Vol. 29. New York: Gale Research, 1996. 243-47. Print.
The gender roles in Vergil’s Aeneid are a complex composition that can be read differently from varying contextual views. Particularly nuanced is his representation of female characters, both goddess and mortal. The intricacy of this representation stems from the dichotomy of a modern reading compared to the contemporary values of the time. Current values and norms have socialized the modern viewer to view Vergil’s female representations through culturally constructed roles, or tropes. Juno and Venus both exemplify traits that a modern viewer may identify as that of a woman scorned. Similarly, Dido and Amata reflect the typical characterization of the hysterical woman. It is these culturally constructed concepts that are subliminally framing the work for the modern reader that can cause a discrepancy in representation. Therefore, readers can interpret that Vergil is depicting the female characters as irrational, and are a stark contrast to the males of the epic, particularly Aeneas. However, contemporary values revealed that the motivations of the female characters were in fact normal. Pietas, the Roman value that called for devotion to the state, gods, and family, can be seen as the catalyst of action for all of the female characters. Consequently, the female characters actually embody many of the same values of Aeneas. For this reason, modern viewers can be faced with difficulty determining the representation of women in the Aeneid. Throughout the epic, Vergil seems to portray women as irrational and meddlesome from a modern point of view. However, their motivations are driven by virtues of devotion that were typically accepted by contemporary standards and associated with men as represented in the epic, such as Aeneas.
Publius Vergilius Maro most famously known as Virgil, was known as one of Rome 's greatest poets of the time that Augustus commissions his writing of the Roman epic, The Aeneid. Like all epics, The Aeneid uses certain conventions or traditional techniques: an invocation to the Muse; the beginning in media res (in the middle of things); the catalogue of heroes; epic games; and the epic simile. In The Aeneid, after the Trojan wars destruction, born a great hero, Aeneas, who was search for his identity and Rome. The Virgilian epic poem is a paratactic. Aeneas is from Troy, he is the son of Venus and Anchises, and he is the father of Ascanius. The Aeneid is to say that Aeneas is an idealized version of Augustus. The Aeneid is used as a tool to
C. In The Shepheardes Calender Spenser used a deliberately archaic language, partly in homage to Chaucer, whose work he praised as a “well of English undefiled,” and partly to achieve a rustic effect, in keeping with the feigned simplicity of pastoral poetry’s shepherd singers.
Despite the afore-mentioned obstacle (an obstacle the surmounting of which yields so much pleasure and insight) to readerly intercourse with Shakespeare, one can often recognize and trace logical devices he employed in order the more effectively and precisely to communicate his message. The parallel plot of Gloucester and hi...
The Tragedy of King Lear by William Shakespeare, is often considered to be the Everest of Shakespeare’s plays (Holland, 2007). It is a tragic masterpiece and the summation of its author’s skills as a playwright. This is evident in the thematic complexities and masterful use of the tragic genre to convey a socio-political commentary to the audience. Indeed, it is clear that the genre does support King Lear as a socio-political commentary and that this commentary influences Shakespeare’s manipulation of theatrical and literary aspects of the text. Though King Lear might appear at first as chaotic in this regard as its titular character and the message/meaning of the play therefore uncertain, there is a predominant sense of order in its careful exploration of socio-political issues such as class struggle, tyranny by monarchy, and power-driven relationships. This criticism evidently influences Shakespeare’s manipulation of certain theatrical and literary devices within play, which in turn are used to further support the message of social equality and criticism of tyrannical monarchy. Dramatic and literary features such as plot, character, language and action complement this socio-political commentary and result from the tragic genre that Shakespeare has chosen. In turn, the genre and the devices work together to support the commentary that King Lear is trying to pass on to an audience; to reinforce the idea that Kings are also men and just as flawed, that men can also be Kings and that in death we are all equal.
Throughout the centuries, writing an epic is considered as the major qualification of being master poet for the European writers and many writers attempt to give an example in this genre along their life time. Unfortunately, big portion of such writers fail and burry in the dusty shelves of the literature whereas some other writers’ life time could not be long enough to complete “such divine duty that puts on the poets’ shoulders. (Sydney 47).Especially, when we look through the English literature, till the first existence of the national epic works, English writers feel the lack of epic writer figure such as Homer of Greeks, or Virgil of Latins in their literature and this obligates them to focus on writing in epic genre and this need causes them to complain about this absence more frequently. For instance, Edmund Spenser claims in one of his pastoral, The Shepheardes Calender, as if a poet wants to be master in poetry, s/he has to abandon writing the basic forms of poetry such as pastoral and has to write an epic then his/her name will be written in the sky. Spenser deeply believed that it was necessary to construct an English, Christian Epic. The reason for this can be found within Sir Philip, An Apologie for Poetrie. It is Sydney’s desire to prove that the art of poetry is not a waste of time to Elizabethan society. By legitimizing poetry as a true art form, he is also validating the English language’s need for a great national epic. On the other hand, Spenser, himself achieves to fulfil such a call with one of the best examples of epic poetry, through his incomplete masterpiece, The Faerie Queene, to the English literature. Unfortunately his life could not let him to finish the whole work as his intents, he is able to write o...