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Idea of transformation ovid's metamorphoses
Idea of transformation ovid's metamorphoses
Idea of transformation ovid's metamorphoses
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Philomela is a minor figure in Greek mythology. Ovid’s Metamorphoses tells the tale of Philomela, the daughter of the king of Athens – Pandion. King Pandion offers his other daughter, Procne in marriage to Tereus. Tereus rapes his wifes sister, Philomela and mutilates her. Philomela and Procne hacked at little Itys, Procne and Tereus’s son and took his body parts, cooked it and fed it to Tereus. As Tereus feasts he asks for Itys to join him, this is where Procne reveals the ugly truth to him. Philomela enters and throws Itys’s bloody head at Tereus. He then jumps up and chases after the women with his sword, wanting to kill them. Before he can get to them, they all turn into birds, and Tereus does not catch them. In the text we are confronted
One of the myths was, Polyphemus was in love with a sea nymph named Galateia, a sicilian nereid who had cheated on him with a man named Acis. When Polyphemus discovered this he crushed Acis under a rock. Another myth was the story of Odysseus. This story was when Polyphemus had captured Odysseus one of victorious greek leaders and twelve of his crew members when they were sailing for home from the trojan war. They became captured when they arrived to an unknown island of cyclopes. Odysseus and his men came upon the cave of Polyphemus, and went inside in hopes to steal food while Polyphemus was away tending his flock. Curiosity got the best of Odysseus as he wanted to see what a cyclops looked like. Odysseus and his men hid in the cave waiting for Polyphemus to come back.
This gives the readers a clue that what is to happen in the upcoming text is a
In The Metamorphoses, Ovid’s book six tells us a story about Arachne who is the daughter of Idmon and an incredible weaver, challenged by the goddess Minerva. When Arachne wins the challenge it causes Minerva to strike back with violence. While reading Ovid’s stories, we recognize that he wrote stories based on the way the mind contemplates trauma. Ovid is interested in human awareness, and he helps us comprehend the emotions of the powerful and powerless. The gods express possessiveness, envy, and anger towards each other. At this time, in Ovid’s Roman World the gods have the power to manipulate and use their evil strategies. I will be concentrating on Arachne and Minerva; how their emotions take a big sorrow during the time when the powerful takes over the less powerful and punishes them abusively. I will deliberate primarily on the themes of emotions, power, of the gods to show the powerless.
Ovid's story of Erysichthon is told in the epic Metamorphoses at lines 738-878 in book 8. Erysichthon was a man who is guilty of a sacrilege involving the sacred grove of the goddess Ceres. The goddess punishes him by casting the dreadful Famine upon him, where she would hide and consume Erysichthon with a voracious hunger. This punishment for cutting down the sacred oak of Ceres is severe indeed, bringing misfortune not only to him, but upon his whole country. He even resorts to selling his own daughter for money to feed himself as a result of his ravenous desire for food. His daughter cries out to Neptune who enables her to be able change her form into a fisherman so that she could elude her masters. In the end, Erysichthon consumed by his hunger, tore at his own flesh in order to feed himself. The story can be broken down into three parts, which each individually defines a mood that adds to the atmosphere of the story. There is the initial introduction with Erysichthon defacing the sacred oak tree of Ceres, the journey to enlist the aid of Famine in punishing Erysichthon and finally the exploitation of Erysichthon's daughter and his ultimate demise. The story has an ominous mood throughout the development and unraveling of Erysichthon's punishment, although there are instances when the mood is lightened, if only for a few lines. The murky seriousness of the story is complimented with the depressing fate of Erysichthon and his daughter as he is driven to madness. This balance is appropriately built up as the plot is unfolded, in addition to a suitable mixture of the humour and seriousness. Details that describe the living environment and emotions of the characters are brought forth in a passive yet elegant manner. In union with the mood however, the details give a cruel and harsh reality that gives the reader a true feeling of the poem.
In his lecture Oedipus at the Crossroads, Simon Goldhill addresses the idea that the incest between mother and son results in the collapse not only of the characters, but of language itself: or rather, of the language the characters use to express their despair. The fact that Oedipus stumbles on the words “Daughter, sister…” reflects this breakdown of language. In Sophocles’ Philoctetes, there is a similar sense of shattered language, but here it is more a case of being abandoned by language, of language and civilisation being so intrinsic to each other that being left behind by one implies being left behind by both. The Chorus’s description of what they imagine Philoctetes’s solitary existence to be like reflects this: “He cries out in his wretchedness;/there is only a blabbering echo,/that comes from the distance speeding/from his bitter crying”(187), using lack of dialogue to represent his solitude. Similarly, it is significant that it is not distinct words that announce Philoctetes’s approach the first time he comes on stage, but rather “the voice of a man wounded” and “a bitter cry” (209,210). And it is no coincidence that upon meeting Neoptolemus, Philoctetes’ greeting becomes an insistent, repetitive cry: “Take pity on me; speak to me; speak/ speak if you come as friends. / No—answer me/ If this is all/ that we can have from one another, speech, this, at least, we should have” (230). Just as, when Odysseus’ plan has been revealed and the men are preparing to leave, Philoctetes’ supplication is “Your voice has no word for me, son of Achilles? / Will you go away in silence?”(1065). Speech is equated with pity, di...
Metamorphoses is Ovid’s most famous work. The poetry preserves information pertaining to the author, provenance, genre, and intended audience and provenance of the text. The author, Ovid, was born around 43 BCE in Sulmo, which is a town about 100 miles from Rome. He was born into a politically active family whose intention was for Ovid to have a political career. They sent him to Rome with his brother, and this was where Ovid found poetry. He began writing in 26 BCE, and in 8 CE Ovid was banished to Tomis because his work Ars Armatoria was offensive and he committed an unknown crime. At the time of his exile from Rome, Ovid was finished with Metamorphoses, but he burned his original manuscript as a result of anger. It was later
The most common visualization of Gregor, the main character in “The Metamorphosis” is him as a cockroach, which he has unexpectedly transformed into one morning. It is said that Kafka’s use of the cockroach was completely random and in fact not at all in reference to a cockroach at all, simply a bug. However, the author’s vague imagery of the creature itself leaves an open window to skepticism and imagination. The unclear vision of the insect could lead to many suggestions, one such as religion. There are infact several biblical/religious references throughout “The Metamorphosis.” The first is the Gregor’s main body, the insect, which some view as a cockroach but as it was said is untrue could lead to Gregor being simply a beetle. In which
Pyrocles arrived in Arcadia and fell in love with Philoclea with a picture of her, then with Philoclea herself. Pyrocles who at this point is infatuated with Philoclea decides to become a woman. The reader understands Zelmane takes advantage of the forms of courtesy and friendship, trying to seduce Philoclea.
Pilate Dead is a major character who stands out from the other characters in Song of Solomon. Pilate Dead does not represent the stereotypical weak, dependent woman that the novel depicts through the female characters that are in the story. The women in Song of Solomon were seen as subordinate to their significant other and lacking the strength to live on their own. However, Pilate demonstrates a strong, dependent women who is capable of surviving on her own without showing any inferiority to men. Her strength and independence is shown through her lifestyle, her relationship with other characters, and her death.
Love and beauty is another theme that recurs in Greek discussion, especially in Plato’s dialogues. In the Phaedrus and especially the Symposium, Plato discusses the nature of erotic love and give the argument for the ultimately transcendental object of love: Beauty. In both dialogues, Plato presents Socrates as a quintessential philosopher who is a lover of wisdom, and through his great speeches we are able to grasp Platonism and Plato’s view on the interesting theme.
Explores how "turning a blind eye" operates in the drama of Oedipus and how it can be recognized in clinical work. The story of the play is recounted, and P. Vellacott's (1971) study of Sophocles and Oedipus is used to suggest that both the play and the Oedipus complex need to be understood at 2 levels simultaneously. In the classical view, Oedipus is a victim of fate and bravery. Freud likened this to the course of an analysis where the unconscious is gradually revealed to the patient. It is contended that, at the same time, Sophocles wanted the reader to understand that the chief characters in the play must have been aware of Oedipus' identity, realized that he had committed parricide and incest, and may have, for their own reasons, turned
In many ways, judging and comparing Vigil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses is inevitable because each of the writers lived at roughly the same time in history, both sought to create a historical work that would endure long past their mortal existences, and while each man was ultimately successful in their endeavors, they achieved their desired goals in vastly different ways. That being said, the epic poem by Ovid is superior because unlike Virgil, whose epic poem utilized a character centered narrative steeped in historical inferences and a theme that celebrated the moral virtues of Greek and Roman society, Ovid defied tradition by creating an intricate narrative that looked
In Sophocles’ Greek Tragedy, Oedipus at Colonus Oedipus wanders around cities outside of Thebes in hopes of eventually finding a place to die. Since he is blind from stabbing out his eyes in Oedipus the King his daughter Antigone acts as his eyes and guide. They find a grove in in the outskirts of Athens where Oedipus decides he wants to be buried. Ismene, Oedipus’ other daughter, comes bringing news saying that Creon and Oedipus’ son Eteocles, want Oedipus to come back to Thebes because a prophecy says that wherever Oedipus is buried, the city will have good fortune. After Oedipus refuses and he and Creon argue, Creon kidnaps his daughters and leaves. King Theseus finds Antigone and Ismene and brings them back to Colonus. Oedipus’ other
After Oenome convinces Theseus that his son has been trying to steal the love of his wife, Hippolytus is banished by his father and Neptune is sent to kill him. At this point, Phaedra learns that Hippolytus was capable of loving someone, and the guilt that she feels is from her denying another woman the love of Hippolytus. She has caused the suffering of another woman, Aricia, and now she has also caused a father to banish and kill his own son. Finally, after the death of Oenome, Aricia, and Hippolytus, the power of her guilt has engulfed her and she can no longer live in the absence of truth or with the deeds she has done.
He eats some of his men and traps the rest for his future meals. By the next day Odysseus comes up with a plan to get Polyphemus drunk so he can attack. He gets him drunk with wine from the ship and as he falls with intoxication he stabs him in the eye with a wooden stick and they escape. After escaping Polyphemus, Odysseus and him men head towards the home of Aeolus god of the winds. They were greeted warmly, taken care of and they stayed there for a month. Aeolus gives Odysseus a bag containing all of the winds that might send them in the wrong direction. He tells him that only the West Wind can bring them to Ithaca. After sailing for 10 days, they are so close to home they can see it. Odysseus goes to sleep and his men open the bag that Aeolus gave him thinking that there was going to be gold and treasures in there. When they open it they are automatically sent back to Aeolus’ land and he refuses to help them anymore. Now they must row their way to the land of cannibalistic giants, Laestrygonians. The giants suddenly attack and eat some of his men. The remaining men and Odysseus run towards the ship. He and his men then travel to Aeaea, the home of a beautiful yet dangerous