As stated earlier, Burgess' writings were very scientific in nature, and naturally they read in a very scientific way. The book is presented as a study of the makings of Homers poetry and how his poetry (especially Iliad and Odyssey) became known as the Epic Cycle genre. He states, "Indeed, eventually the whole genre of epic poetry became equated with Homer." (pg 130)
The only problem that a reader might have with Burgess' work is that, even though it has a solid thesis, and a lot of supporting evidence, there seems to be little, if any, real purpose to the book. In actuality, Jonathan could have probably started his book with a statement from page 33 that states, "Trojan ar material found in the Epic Cycle has very old roots and continued to be used by poets and artists throughout antiquity" and would have made his point just as well as…...
mlaWorks Cited
Jonathan S. Burgess, Tradition of the Trojan War in Homer and Epic Cycles, (Maryland, the John Hopkins University Press) 2001
Cassandra's aunt said, "The world is changing, I tell you - but it is the fault of the women who did not keep their men in place." (1-193) the second story is a much more modern story set in a "post-nuclear- holocaust world" and is a rather discouraging tale of men 'servitors' playing the role of servant to the remaining women and children left in the world. There are still some men left that are warriors, but the real 'manly' characters are the ones who 'serve' the ladies. The children borne to these woman are raised as peace-loving individuals, while the woman try desperately to breed violence out of their men-children.
The strength of this book is the exquisite detail to be found concerning the fall of Troy and the stories that still abound today about that fall. Thompson has done a terrific job of research and it shows.
The book…...
mlaWorks Cited
1. Diane P. Thompson, the Trojan War (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 2004)
As the army is moving closer towards his position, he has fear about what the upcoming battle will bring. Yet, he sets these concerns aside in order to fulfill his duty as a warrior. (Homer, 1876) (Harris, 2011)
While Achilles, is the complete opposite. An example of his selfish behavior occurred after he killed Hector. Instead, of leaving his body behind, he drags it around to show everyone in Troy his latest conquest. This is clearly, an example of him wanting to illustrate his own personal ambitions over everything else. In this aspect, one could argue that Achilles did not have any respect for Troy, the traditions of sacrifice / selflessness and only fought for his own glorification over everything else. The fact that Hector defended these larger ideals is what makes him more admirable than Achilles. (Homer, 1876) (Harris, 2011)
The ancient Greeks had two different concepts of heroism. The…...
mlaReferences
Harris, S. (2011). Classical Mythology. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Homer. (1876). The Iliad. Philadelphia, PA: JP Lippencourt.
"
This approach contrasts sharply to the constant calling out to the gods and the direct actions of the gods as presented in The Iliad. Especially when read as a piece of social and political commentary, as it was very likely intended when written and first performed, it becomes clear that at this point in their history the ancient Athenians placed greater emphasis and value on the actions of people rather than the actions of the god. Civic responsibility and humanitarian action are valued above brute militarism and religious devotion, showing a clear contrast from the values that are implied in even the most cursory reading of The Iliad. Though both of these works come from ancient Greece, there was obviously a great deal of change in the cultural values and perceptions of the Greeks during the intervening centuries.
Troy
Several more centuries -- millennia, in fact -- later, the Trojan ar was…...
mlaWorks Cited
Euripides. The Trojan Women. David Kovacs, trans. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Homer. The Iliad. Robert Fitzgerald, trans. New York: Doubleday, 1974.
Petersen, Wolfgang. Troy. Warner Bros, 2004.
Homer. The Iliad. Robert Fitzgerald, trans. New York: Doubleday, 1974, pp. 238.
Iliad is the tale of two male warriors, Hector and Achilles. Hector, a Trojan prince, fights nobly to defend his doomed city, even though the most powerful gods stand against him. Meanwhile Achilles, the Achaian warrior who knows he is fated to die in battle, must fight his own nature as well as his enemies. omen appear only in minor roles; there are no fully developed female characters among mortals or gods in The Iliad. hen female characters do appear, they are typically portrayed in one of three ways: as property, as betrayers of men, and as devoted wives and mothers.
The idea of women as property lies at the very center of the Trojan ar. The Achaians are fighting to reclaim Helen, wife of Menelaos, from Paris, son of Priam of Troy. Paris, in turn, believes it is his right to have Helen, pointing out that she was a…...
mlaWorks Cited
Homer. The Iliad. Trans W.H.D. Rouse. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1999.
Thucydides Peloponnesian War
The Peloponnesian War history is based on the historical account of Peloponnesian War between 431 and 404 C. The war was led by Athens (the Delian League), and the other led by Sparta within the Peloponnesian League. Thucydides (an Athenian historian) serving as a general in the war developed the focus of the battle.
Together with a lack of trust in Thucydides' information, the narration is not a firsthand experience as Homer's did. However, he uses poet's epics in inferring facts about Trojan War. For example, while Thucydides valued the amount of Greek ships to be over 1,000 towards Troy as poetic exaggeration, he engages Homer's ships catalog when approximating the presence of Greek soldiers. In addition, Thucydides claims that Homer refuses reference for United Greek states for pre-Hellenic nations through disjointed while organizing the launch of effective campaigns. Thucydides adds that Troy was to be conquered using half…...
mlaBibliography
1. Thucydides, Robert B. Strassler, and Richard Crawley. The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War. New York: Free Press, 1998.
Thucydides, Robert B. Strassler and Richard Crawley. The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War. (New York: Free Press, 1998), 502.
Thucydides, Robert B. Strassler, and Richard Crawley. The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War. (New York: Free Press, 1998), 231.
Thucydides, Robert B. Strassler, and Richard Crawley. The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War. (New York: Free Press, 1998), 132.
Trojan Wars and Culture
The three epic stories namely, The Iliad, the Trojan Women, Pericle's Funeral Oration are powerfully written master pieces of work, that illustrate the element of horridness of war beautifully.
The Iliad
The story of Homer's Iliad focuses on the "rage of Achilles." eading this epic poem makes one believe that it is based entirely on the totality and gruesomeness of war. However, it tells us about the details of war with full description and information. Though war is an important aspect of the tale, but the real story is based on the remarkable fighter and hero-that man is none other than Achilles.
Achilles possesses the greatest military expertise of any of the Achaean ranks and also the greatest fighting ability out of all of the warriors, Trojan or Achaean. At the beginning of the epic, Achilles becomes liberated from his fellow warriors and retreats back to his own ships of…...
mlaReferences
Homer, The Iliad
McLaren, The Trojan Women
Thucydides, Pericles's Funeral Oration
Is it a sign of inconsistency in Athena that at the end of the Odyssey she echoes the sentiment of Zeus and sues for peace whereas in Book 4 of the Iliad she is all too eager to ignore the sentiment of her father and manipulate the warriors into shedding more blood? Again -- not necessarily. hile, were it up to Zeus he would gladly see men work out their problems in a peaceful way, and, if he can help it, only sends strife and war when men need to be punished. The relationship between war and peace is complicated by the fact that he is not the only god (even if he is king of the gods). The gods seem to have just as many quarrels and disagreements among themselves as men do on Earth -- a point Zeus knows quite well. That is the reason he presides over…...
mlaWorks Cited
Homer. The Iliad. (Trans. By Richmond Lattimore). IL: University of Chicago Press,
1951. Print.
Homer. The Odyssey. (Trans. By Robert Fitzgerald). NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
1961. Print.
In Book 19, Athena also advises wisdom when she provides Achilles with divine food to strengthen him. Achilles refuses to eat while he mourns Patroklos. Athena recognizes the lack of wisdom in this and encourages Achilles to gain strength for the battle ahead.
In Book 5 and 6, Athena's relationship with the other divinities show her urge to drive change. The Trojan War will result in a new era, but only if she encourages Greek victory. Hence, she enters a strategic partnership with Hera, who works with her against the will of Zeus to overcome the Trojans. Hera also helps Athena in her assistance to Diomedes.
As for Diomedes, his partnership culminates in change when he stops fighting Glaukos after finding out that their families are bound in friendship. This realization is indicative of the inevitable dawn of the new era: when conversation will reveal the need for further action, rather than…...
Achilles, in effort to match his personal loss on a national level, strives to kill Hector, again fueling the economy of revenge, but this time in a far more 'high stakes' manner. Now, the loss of a man will result in the loss of Troy's greatest warrior. But even though Achilles emerges victorious from this struggle, his is an empty victory. He knows that his own death will follow shortly after the death of Hector. He does not care; revenge means everything to him in the heat of the moment, just like sacrificing the Greek advantage was worth upholding his honor at the beginning of the poem.
Although Achilles' sudden loyalty to his friend may seem honorable to some degree, perhaps more honorable than Menelaus' obsession with Helen, it also shows how the dynamic of loss leading to more and greater losses has spiraled out of control. The one real…...
Achilles' speech Agamemnon's embassy Book 9 " Illiad" it Achilles reflects codes behavior heroes
The Right to Pride
The Trojan ar was fought for a variety of reasons, the most fundamental of which was because Helen was abducted from Sparta and delivered to Paris of Troy. Yet for many of the individual combatants, and particularly for those who were regarded as heroes, the war was fought for far more personal and lasting reasons. As many of the heroes within this epic indicate via their speech and actions, the Trojan ar was ultimately a chance for glory everlasting, and the opportunity to claim a renown and fame for deeds done and opponents conquered that would not present itself for quite some time, if ever again. Achilles, the hero of the epic and one of its most unequivocal champions, personified this desire for glory that drove most of the heroes in the conflict,…...
mlaWorks Cited
Homer. The Iliad. www.poetryintranslation.com. Web.http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Iliad9.htm.
life.
This temper surely gave Clytemnestra the ability to withstand her "wretched life" by serving as a type of emotional outlet for her anger and disappointment related to being imprisoned in her own household as the doting wife of Agamemnon who certainly experienced sexual encounters with other women as leader of the Greek armies at Troy.
Another example has Clytemnestra admitting "Thus harassed by these ever-rife reports
(i.e., that Agamemnon was dead)/Full often from my neck have forceful hands/Seized and untied the beam-suspended noose" (Swanwick, 179), a reference to attempting to hang herself from a roof beam. This indicates that Clytemnestra was indeed a very strong woman with sufficient inner strength to do away with herself because of her grief associated with Agamemnon and his alleged death at the hands of the Trojans -- "For a woman severed from her mate/To sit forlorn at home is grievous woe" (Swanwick, 179).
In Iphigenia at…...
mlaBIBLIOGRAPHY
Martin, Thomas R. Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1996.
Swanwick, Anna, Trans. The Dramas of Aeschylus. London: George Bell & Sons, 1907. Rpt.
Constable, 2005.
Finally, Vigil's pesence thoughout the Divine Comedy is thee fo a philosophical eason, as well; he is meant to epesent the claity of eason in a spiitually chaotic univese.
Home, autho of the geat epic the Odyssey, also appeas in Dante's Divine Comedy, in the Limbo section of the Infeno. Home was also the autho of the Iliad, which tells the stoy of the Tojan Wa. Home's pesence in Dante's wok effectively connects the Floentine poet with the politics and poetics of ancient Geece. This is futhe symbolized by the fact that Home, in the Infeno, leads as "Lod" thee Latin poets - Hoace, Ovid, and Lucan. This futhe undelines the effect that the ancient Geeks had on the Romans - and the double influence that both had on Dante as a poet and politician.
The Latin poet Lucan, although not as well-known as Hoace and Ovid today, was an impotant…...
mlareferences and spiritual invocations of Roman and Greek poets of the past, Dante's the Divine Comedy signals an important act of homage to some of the great writers that preceded him - writers whose voices are allowed to resonate through Dante Alighieri's own.
Although my family is not made up of English speakers, they have always stressed that succeeding in school is an important part of being successful in life. It is not just grades that are important. The lessons a student learns in school will help the student succeed later in life.
Learning English is an immediately useful skill. When I am learning algebra or chemistry, sometimes I wonder how these subjects can help me in my everyday life. When I am learning English, I know that I can use the language to communicate more effectively with others. I know that what I am learning in class can help me improve my writing for all of my classes. And someday, I would like to write stories that are just as exciting as the books I like to read.
I will succeed in English 1A because of my previous preparation, my determination, and my…...
In Homer, he can boast: "Do you not see what a man I am, how huge, how splendid / and born of a great father, and the mother who bore me immortal?" (Homer Book 21, lines 108-109, p. 421).
In Cassandra however, he can still boast but doesn't always get away with it. In a rather accusatory and insulting tone, olf referred to Achilles in this way: "A fiend in battle so that everyone would see he was not a coward, he did not know what to do with himself once the fighting was done...And this is the man to whom Calchas the seer later had to turn over his daughter." (83) Cassandra believed that Achilles' brave soldier act was but only a facade. hile Homer mentions facts to capture the essence of Achilles' personality, olf uses observation and perception to get her results. The bottom line was the same…...
mlaWorks Cited
Bibliography
McDonald, W.E. "Who's Afraid of Wolf's Cassandra-or Cassandra's Wolf?: Male Tradition and Women's Knowledge in Cassandra." Journal of Narrative Technique. Ypsilanti, MI (JNT). 1990 Fall, 20:3, 267-283.
Russi, Roger Ph.D. Dialogues of Epic Figures: Christa Wolf's Kassandra, Monique Wittig's Les Geurilleres, and Marion Zimmer Bradley's the Firebrand. Diss. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1993. Ann Arbor: A Bell & Howell Company, 1993.
Wolf, Christa. Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays. Trans. Jan Van Heurck. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc., 1984.
1. The Enduring Power of Myth: Chaucer's Retelling of Ancient Tales in "The Canterbury Tales"
Thesis: Chaucer's adaptation of classical myths in "The Canterbury Tales" demonstrates the enduring power of storytelling and the timeless relevance of archetypal narratives.
Points of Discussion:
Chaucer's use of myths such as Orpheus and Eurydice, Pyramus and Thisbe, and the Trojan War
The transformative role of myth in shaping human experience and social values
The universality of mythological themes and their resonance with audiences across time
2. The Female Gaze in Chaucer's "The Legend of Good Women": Reclaiming Feminine Perspectives
Thesis: Through the lens of the female narrator in....
1. Characters and stories from Greek mythology are often referenced in modern pop culture, such as in movies, television shows, and video games. For example, the character of Achilles from the Trojan War is frequently mentioned in popular media.
2. Many modern books and novels draw inspiration from Greek mythology, incorporating elements such as gods, heroes, and monsters into their plots. Authors such as Rick Riordan and Madeline Miller have gained popularity for their retellings of Greek myths.
3. The themes and moral lessons found in Greek mythology continue to resonate with audiences today, and are often explored in contemporary literature. These....
Gilgamesh and the Quest for Immortality in Epic Poetry
Immortality has captivated human imagination since time immemorial. The enduring epics of ancient civilizations often explore this tantalizing concept, with protagonists embarking on arduous quests to attain eternal life. Among these literary masterpieces, two stand out: "The Epic of Gilgamesh" from Mesopotamia and "The Odyssey" from Greece. While both feature protagonists with extraordinary journeys, only one is driven by an unyielding desire for immortality: Gilgamesh.
Gilgamesh: The Mortal King with Immortal Dreams
"The Epic of Gilgamesh," composed around 2150 BCE, narrates the extraordinary life of Gilgamesh, a legendary king of Uruk. Gilgamesh is portrayed....
1. The Cyclops Polyphemus: Odysseus cleverly blinded Polyphemus by giving him wine (which Polyphemus had never tasted before) and claiming his name was "Nobody." When Polyphemus cried out in pain, the other Cyclopes thought he was mad and did not come to his aid.
2. Circe: Odysseus outsmarted the sorceress Circe by having Hermes give him an herb called moly that made him immune to her magic. He then threatened her with his sword and demanded she restore his men to their human form.
3. Sirens: Odysseus had his men block their ears with beeswax so they would not hear the Sirens'....
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