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...
... middle of paper ...
... 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.
Morford, Mark P.O., and Robert J. Lenardon. Classical Mythology. '7th ed'. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Clearly, there is a distinction between the world of the Roman gods and the world that everyday people live in. Man, according to Ovid, has experienced a gold, sil...
“Remember we are women, we’re not born to contend with men” (Sophocles, 18). The popular literary works, Antigone and A Doll’s House, written by Sophocles and Ibsen, are two famous tragedies that have been performed and read throughout the decades. Although countless audiences have been entertained by these well written plays, few would care to guess that many lessons and several unfortunate truths can be found with a less than tedious inspection of the characters and the reactions they give to their circumstances. The two main characters in these stories, Antigone and Nora, face adversities and problems that are amplified by their society’s views on the rights and abilities of women. The two main male characters in these plays, Creon and Helmer, cause the greater part of the struggle that the female protagonists face. The difficulties that Helmer and Creon create during the plot of these stories are the cause of three major characteristics of what one would consider typical to a headstrong man in a leadership position. The three features of Creon and Helmer that lead to the eventual downfall of Antigone and Nora, are pride, arrogance, and ignorance.
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.
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.
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.
The main character, Ovid, is a vivid example of how lives can be periodically changed according to alterations in the surrounding environment. At the start of the book Ovid is a stranger to his setting, stranded in a culture that deprives him of his language, his customs, and his pride. This shows that identity is primarily constructed according to the society in which people are placed, and much social learning and norms are derived from conformity to the conditions of a particular environment. In An Imaginary Life, Ovid completes a journey of self discovery, learning how to create and cultivate an existence based on interrelationship with the natural world, entering a into partly idealistic and imaginary existence, hence the title.
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 contrast, Ovid conceived a different purpose for his epic. He wrote fifteen books, compared to Virgil's twelve, with many of his stories originating from Greek and Roman myth, concerned with the transformations of shapes, from the creation of the world to Julius Caesar's death and deification. He focuses on entertaining the reader in a humorous fashion, and rather than establishing Rome's origins in history, he is more concerned with establishing his own fame, for the future ages. These different backgrounds of the two authors illustrate that they each had contrasting agendas for their books. Thus, the portrayal of the gods differs greatly-Virgil's are austere and purposeful, whereas, Ovid's are humorous, reflecting his neoteric style, and intentionally different from the Virgilian gods.
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...
Mandelbaum, Allen, trans. The Metamorphoses of Ovid. By Ovid. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & company, 2008.