The passage to be analysed comes from Book 11 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (lines 399-538) (A.Melville, 1986) it is the story of Callisto translated meaning the Moon which is a fitting transition as it starts with the ending of the story of the Sun. Ovid uses the destruction caused by Phaethon after using this fathers chariot and winged horses to prove his paternal parentage.
An important narrative within at least the first two books of the Metamorphoses must be the repetitive and increasingly disturbing nature of the sexual attacks upon Diana’s nymphs. The story of Callisto brings about the forth attack and to date in the book the most deceitful of all.
(Heath, 1991)States:
These narrative conventions build to a momentary yet sundering climax in book three in the tale of Actaeon, in which Diana a careful and understandably suspicious audience of Ovid’s Narrative word of hunt and rape cannot help misinterpretation Actaeon’s actions.
However ; although it can be seen that the tales of Daphne, Syrinx, Io and Callisto are just a graduation leading to Actaeon’s in book three each hold significance especially that of Callisto as it shows not only the growing closeness of the attacks to Diana but also that Jupiter/Jove/Almighty, learning with each attack like any sexual predator
At the start of the story Jove seen healing the earth from the destruction, the merciful almighty (god of gods) almost endearing Jove to the readership. Ovid’s use of scenery does not go amiss (Parry, 1964)suggested ‘ Ovid remains as Herter insists a poet not a painter... a poem always is something more than a transcription from pictorial to literally’
Ovid uses these opening lines to set the scene showing the imagery of mountains...
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... must simply bow to the writers cunning and somewhat existential flair in renewing the myths of old. It is hard to see why it took so many years for the Metamorphoses to become part of mainstream education yet it can also be seen as a work of mythological superiority in the form of poetry covering all genres with its underlying tales of deception, sexual exploits, corruption, rape and the hunt can be transported into modern life.
Works Cited
A.Melville. (1986). Ovid Metamorphoses. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Heath, J. (1991). Diana's understanding of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Th classical Journal , 186 (3), 223-243.
Parry, H. (1964). Ovid's Metamorphoses: Violence in pastoral landscapes. Transactions and proceedings of the American Association , 95, 268-282.
Segal, C. (2001). Jupiter in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Arion: Third series , 9 (1), 78=99.
The Roman poet Ovid once said in his narrative poem The Metamorphoses: “But since, o Gods, you were the source of these bodies becoming other bodies, breathe your breath into my book of changes”. Thus, literal and figurative transformation has been an enduring theme in literature since the dawn of civilisation. Over the centuries, literature has captured humankind’s use of transformation for survival purposes: be that social, physical, political and economical. For example, Les Mutineries by Guy Pedroncini, an account of the French riots that took place in 1917 regards transformation among the people as a form of revolution. This is a text that was key to Faulks’ knowledge surrounding the context of the Great War. In his 1993 novel Birdsong, Faulks, too, treats transformation of social order and norms, as a form of revolution. Transformation is represented via the episodic structure in Birdsong which transports his female protagonists through rapidly changing social and personal time frames. By doing so, he manages to connect the females to their pasts and presents thereby facilitating an exploration of how they form and adapt their values across their lives.
Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus can be argued that it is related loosely to Rita Dove's The Darker Face of the Earth. This comparative and contrasting characteristics that can be seen within both plays make the reader/audience more aware of imagery, the major characters, plot, attitudes towards women, and themes that are presented from two very different standpoints. The authors Sophocles and Dove both have a specific goal in mind when writing the two plays. In this paper I will take a closer look of the two, comparing and contrasting the plays with the various elements mentioned previously.
As one of the most well known ancient Roman love poets, Ovid has demonstrated bountiful talents within his writing. When reading myths from his book titled Metamorphoses, you gain an enlightening insight of how he viewed mythology. To Ovid, love was the origin of everything. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that most of his poems relate to the theme of love. However, not all poets are the same and every re-telling of a myth has its own unique perspective. In this paper I will compare and contrast the myth of Medea in Euripides Medea and Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 7. I will then explain how Ovid’s approach to love and loss correlate to his general approach to myth as a whole. I will support my belief with evidence from Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 14.
[8] Metamorphoses: p.6 [9] Aeneid: book 1.344 ff. [10]Metamorphoses: p.243. [11] Aeneid: book 1.558. [12] Metamorphoses: p.214-215. [13] Metamorphoses: p.70. [14] Aeneid: book 4.289 ff.
Over the course of time, the roles of men and women have changed dramatically. As women have increasingly gained more social recognition, they have also earned more significant roles in society. This change is clearly reflected in many works of literature, one of the most representative of which is Plautus's 191 B.C. drama Pseudolus, in which we meet the prostitute Phoenicium. Although the motivation behind nearly every action in the play, she is glimpsed only briefly, never speaks directly, and earns little respect from the male characters surrounding her, a situation that roughly parallels a woman's role in Roman society of that period. Women of the time, in other words, were to be seen and not heard. Their sole purpose was to please or to benefit men. As time passed, though, women earned more responsibility, allowing them to become stronger and hold more influence. The women who inspired Lope de Vega's early seventeenth-century drama Fuente Ovejuna, for instance, rose up against not only the male officials of their tiny village, but the cruel (male) dictator busy oppressing so much of Spain as a whole. The roles women play in literature have evolved correspondingly, and, by comparing The Epic of Gilgamesh, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Wife of Bath's Prologue, we can see that fictional women have just as increasingly as their real-word counterparts used gender differences as weapons against men.
Many readers feel the tendency to compare Aphra Behn's Oroonoko to William Shakespeare's Othello. Indeed they have many features in common, such as wives executed by husbands, conflicts between white and black characters, deceived heroes, the absolute vulnerability of women, etc. Both works stage male characters at both ends of their conflicts. In Othello, the tragic hero is Othello, and the villain is Iago. In Oroonoko, the hero is Oroonoko, the vice of the first part is the old king, and the second part white men in the colony. In contrast to their husbands, both heroines—Desdemona and Imoinda—seem more like "function characters" who are merely trapped in their husband's fates, occasionally becoming some motivation of their husbands (like Desdemona is Othello's motivation to rage, Imoinda's pregnancy drives Oroonoko restless to escape). While Shakespeare and Behn put much effort in moulding them, to many readers they are merely "perfect wives". This paper aims to argue that, Desdemona and Imoinda's perfect wifehood may be the product of compliance to male-dominated societies, where women are
The landscape is described in an interesting fashion with contrasting adjectives. It is described as “savage,” but it is “holy” and “enchanted.” The enchantment is compared to a “woman wailing for her demon lover.” This image of sexuality leaves the impression that the Earth is anxiously mourning for a fulfillment of evil. The chasem below Kubla Kahn’s paradise “pleasure dome” is beset with “ceaseless turmoil” and chaos. It is described as “breathing in fast pants” and there is a powerful eruption, resulting in rock fragments bursting out and being flung from the river. The same river that sustained life for the “pleasure dome” floods the land. Additional to the noises of the chaos are “ancestral voiced prophesying war” and these voices of war are a reminder that the
Kaika, Franz. The Metamorphosis and Other Stories. 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501: Dover Publications, 1996. Print.
Morford, Mark P.O., and Robert J. Lenardon. Classical Mythology. '7th ed'. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
The use of Greek mythology was widespread among Renaissance literary texts. The work of Ovid was used foremost as it constituted an important classical source for the literary tradition at that time. Ovid’s Metamorphoses played a very important role in the transmission of a mythological world, becoming a suitable frame for poetry. The Elizabethans were thought to be intrigued with mythical gods and their transformations into mortal bodies. These myths represented the nature of expressing the processes of human emotion and foremost the anguish of love. Metamorphoses implies love as the primary reality of humans thus Ovid’s writing explores the idea of gods falling in love in human form.
In The Penelopiad written by Margaret Atwood, feminism and anti - feminism is present in many settings and scenes proving the sole purpose of the book is to give a voice to the women of The Odyssey showing us different facets of one story. By repeating words and phrases that give the reader negative connotations, Margaret Atwood helps to destroy the predisposed ideology of men being superior to women. Margaret Atwood narrates the book as different female characters that relate instances during which they are discriminated against. By using the maids of Odysseus as examples of dehumanized women, the reader gets to see different perspectives of the original Illiad story. By having the whole story be about Penelope’s adventures while Odysseus was away shows the reader the independence and courage she possessed whereas in the beginning of The Penelopiad when she was reliant on her kingdom. The usage of words like cold blood to describe a murderer, slave to describe a human being, and blame repeatedly to describe an act shows the reader of the torture women in this time period had to suffer through.
Antigone asks Ismene, her sister, if she recognizes how Zeus fulfills them as they live the curse of Oedipus. Although this idea of fulfillment manifests itself specifically in the tragedy of Ismene's and Antigone's radical behavior, the myth also serves as an archetypical model of a woman's position in society, and its patriarchal elements. The influence of Oedipus' curse over his daughters, whether mythological or directly familial, lingers in the ethos of psycho-sexualized European mores. Culturally, this notion characterizes masculinity as being `large and in charge,' the provider and protector; thus, femininity necessarily involves a certain subservience. Such ethos associates femininity with certain gender roles. The story of Oedipus and his daughters, therefore, highlights the overshadowing efficacy of the male presence and it's effects on the female psyche. For instance, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, and William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, each paint a picture of the feminine gender role, which predominantly consists of becoming a proper wife, so as to secure a husband, or mother, so as to produce his heir. Essentially, the occidental woman of this period is confined to a life of marriage. In such a patriarchy, what happens to an Antigone, a vicious rejection of all social conventions? And to an Ismene, a passive surrender to patriarchy's nomos? A woman's relationship to society's oppr...
Gregor's metamorphosis also suggests two arguments: that his transformation portrays the intense nature of humanity and that the transformation reveals a future escape from the intense existence. Th...
The ancient Roman tale known as the “Rape (or seizure) of Sabine Women” depicts women, taken against their will by Roman captures and married to Roman men. These women later, intervene in a battle between their new husbands and their angry brothers and fathers. The ancient tale depicts Roman ideology and practices of marriage. It shows how a bride was transferred from living under her father’s jurisdiction to being ruled by her husband. The capture of the Sabine women, the war that follows, and the final truce brought upon the Sabine women themselves are direct relation to the separation of a young bride from her maternal family, the transfer of authority, and her beginning in her new family. The tale is told by two philosophical figures of Roman history. Livy, whom writes about the events in 30 B.C.E and Ovid whom rights about them nearly a generation later1. Both have different views on the event, its meaning, and its relevance. The two men also share the same thoughts in regards to their view masculinity and power.
Mandelbaum, Allen, trans. The Metamorphoses of Ovid. By Ovid. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & company, 2008.