¶ … Mythology
Tales of love begin with the creation of humans, and continue to the graphic media driven "reality TV" shows that televise the private lives of the bachelor and bachelorette and all the people competing for their love. Love is a feeling everyone can relate to, but it is unlikely most people would claim to understand love. Within almost every literary genre there are myths about love that fuel ideals that are rarely if ever realized. There is no place where this is truer than in the stories of mythology.
The perpetual love myths that exist in classical mythology demonstrate ideals that are confronted even today by individuals searching for love today. The ideals of love that will be explored in this work are: love at first sight, the myth of one true love and the human phenomenon of over idealizing unobtainable love. The stories of classical mythology charter the lives of Cupid, Zeus and others who experienced the long lasting phenomenon of love. Their stories are still topical as the myth driven patterns of human loves are still repeated, today. According to Graeme Nichlolson, the "divinity of love and its kinship with myth...is able to offer true and adequate account of love" (Nicholson 108).
The profile of Cupid gives an illustration for the myth of love at fist sight.
The mythological deity Cupid, also known as Love or Eros is a great favorite of love poets and believers in ideals. Cupid is a "beautiful winged youth... against whose arrows there is no defense, neither heaven nor on the earth" (Hamilton 92).
Aphrodite was attended by Eros (Love). First conceived as a youth, then as a boy, finally as a baby, this Eros (Cupid) flew to execute the commissions of Aphrodite. In his hand he carried a lyre, standing for the music of love, or a bow and arrow to pierce the heart of his victim.
Fairbanks 211)
This powerful idol has the ability to deliver love to whomever he pleases through the strike of an arrow.
Of course, in today's secular world most rational people would discredit a flying boy and his arrows because it's just not possible, but they find other ways to believe in the existence...
With respect to the mythology of the male gods, Zeus, Apollo, and Hephaestus seem to be a combination that matches the dynamism of their female goddess counterparts. These gods represent the good and the bad of males; they also represent the spectrum of power and balance of male energy. There is no one god or goddess myth that I feel fully represents the tension between male and female gods because
Interestingly, Venus is a goddess of love, beauty, and fertility, which is significant, since she was literally created from the male genitalia, and males were more strongly linked to sexuality than females, even at that point in Roman history. In the rest of Roman and Greek mythology, Venus/Aphrodite generally plays a benevolent role, though she does use influence women to use their sexuality in inappropriate ways, such as the
Calling her the worst names he could, insulting her honor and degrading her spirit, the Storm God beckoned forth all the clouds he could and harnessed the wind, thunder, and lightening to use against her in battle. Hearing his brother insult his wife, the Sun God began to brandish his armor and prepare for war. Storm clouds gathered, thick and black and completely obscuring the sun for hours. The people
"Yeats's flight into fairyland begins in his early childhood with Celtic folklore, 'the chief influence of [his] youth,' and climaxes in his early twenties with the 1888 publication of his first book" (Ben-Merre 2008). Yeats was commissioned to "gather and record the fairy and folk tales of the Irish peasantry" in what eventually became Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (Foster 76). "The collection includes descriptions of
Mythology The classical myths of Greece and Rome have much in common with medieval myths, because ultimately, all myths have elements in common. The Greek and Roman myths dwell most often on heroes, Gods, and Goddesses. Their characters are larger than life - someone the reader can look up to. Medieval myths also heavily rely on heroes who commit heroic deeds, such as Charlemagne and King Arthur. One difference is many
Myth Today we are going to talk about the myth of Jason and Medea, and show how it has manifested in different ways in popular culture and the arts. The myth of Jason and Medea stretches back to ancient Greece, but this symbol-laden story has permeated the arts and culture since then. The story has it all: war, love, sex, death, and murder. There are innumerable different versions of the myth,
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