The ocean in medieval times was a thing of great mystery to the ordinary medieval peasant. However to the explorers, the church and the educated the sea was a dangerous place. The ocean began to fascinate people in the time of the early Greeks. The Titans ruled the earth in the beginning, and Oceanus, son of Uranus and Gaea was one of them.
"In him [Oceanus] Homer salutes the essence of all things, even the Gods, and regards him as a divinity whose power was inferior to none but Zeus'"
He was the father of all the rivers and lakes of the world. But then the Olympians rebelled against the Titans, Zeus drove Cronus into the western ocean. When Zeus had taken his place as head of the gods, not even the oceans tides could defy him.
According to the Odyssey there were remote paradise islands in the ocean where time does not apply. Not every Island was paradise though. At Aeaea Odysseus learns of the whereabouts of the entrance to the land of the dead, to which he must travel. When his ship reaches the farthest areas of the ocean he finds it wrapped in fog, a dark place where the unhappy Cimmerians live. These among many other beliefs were carried forward to the medieval times, through oral tradition and through the writings of people like Homer.
Another major factor influencing the medieval view of the ocean is the ideology of the Desert Fathers. The desert fathers were holy men that lived in the near east, who became disillusioned with the materialistic culture of the time and wandered out into the desert as hermits. They were seen as heroes in their time and were revered as wise men. They were sought out by people wanting guidance and gradually became famous for their way of life. They went out to the desert for solit...
... middle of paper ...
...oole Press, Dublin 1989
http://www.vitiaz.ru/congress/en/thesis/2.html - Russian Academy of Sciences, "The world ocean in medieval cartography"
http://www.ennenjanyt.net/4-04/wille.pdf - Analysis of Fabri's "Evagatorium"
"Giants, Monsters and Dragons: An Encyclopaedia Of Folklore Legend and Myth", C. Rose - W.W. Norton & Company Inc, London 2001
"Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology", Translated by R. Aldington - Batchworth Press Ltd, London 1959
"The Discovery of the Atlantic", C. Brochado - Neogravura Ltd, Lisbon 1960
Primary Sources:
"The Life Of Patrick", Muirchu maccu Machtheni - Edited by L. Bieler, Dublin 1970
"The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", Anon.
"Liber De Mensura Orbis Terrae", Dicuil
"Book of Job", King James Bible
The Greeks had many fears. The fear that seems perplexed is of the sea. One might think because they are geographically surrounded by sea they would have learned how to cope and master skills of the sea. They did not; it is proven in the odyssey that ancient Greeks feared the ocean. They feared the violence that the ocean can bring upon them. They thought ocean was an endless trap to death. Laodamas the son of king Phoenicia explained that there is “Nothing worse than the sea, I always say, to crush a man, the strongest man alive.” (Odyssey. P. 195). He could have seen what the sea had done to Odysseus. Odysseus, the greatest hero in the odyssey, was beaten and sabotage by the ocean. If the sea had done that to him, it might have killed and ordinary person in Odysseus position. The ancient Greeks recognize the destruction the ocean can bring upon them. That is the reason the sea was considered to be one of the most frightening things. The reason the...
Homer, The Odyssey, The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, ed. Maynard Mack, Expanded Edition, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), pp. 219-503.
In the mid and late of the 15th Century, Europe attained control over the globe’s wind patterns and ocean currents and started creating a European-based...
Homer uses literary elements to develop Odysseus’ character throughout the Odyssey through the use. In Sailing from Troy, due to the Greek rule of hospitality, King Alcinous welcomes Odysseus into his kingdom asking him to recount his adventures. Odysseus introduces himself saying, “ ‘..this fame has gone abroad to the sky’s rim…’ ( Stanza 1, Lines 18-20)”. Through Homer’s use of hyperbole, Odysseus sets an atmosphere around himself of boastfulness and pride when he says that his fame is renowned even to the gods in the heavens. In the same story, Odysseus describes his kingdom and home, Ithaca saying,” ...I shall not see on Earth a place more dear...” Again through the use of hyperbole , Homer shatters the image portrayed of Odysseus as a master of the land and seas, and more of a man who deeply loves his home and family.
‘The Sea’ followed a different people and it also gave the reader some back story on things and people that were brought up through the book.
What do gods, soldiers, and a one-eyed man all have in common? They are all in the Odyssey by Homer. In the Odyssey, Homer uses Odysseus’s journey to show how one’s journey can define them as a person. This essay will show, whomever may read this, how Odysseus is loyal, witty, and violent.
“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”
The ocean is the center and foundation of this story. The ocean is also part of the scenery and the background, without the ocean, there would be no story. Not only is the ocean the center and the foundation, it is also a symbol of many things in this story. To me, the ocean in this story takes on human characteristics in that to me, it symbolizes a seducer or seductress. The ocean also becomes an escape from reality and symbolizes life itself. The ocean is important because it is what helps bring Edna into her awakening and that is good, in the sense that it helps Edna into finding herself. However, the ocean is evil in that it is responsible for Edna’s demise.
recesses of our oceans. The sphinxes, minotaurs, and sirens of early mythology gave way to Beowulf's
Homer. ?The Odyssey,? World Masterpieces: Expanded Edition. Maynard Mack ed. Ed. Coptic St.: Prentice, 1995.
Homer. “The Odyssey”. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puncher. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. 475. Print.
Homer was a very influential and significant part of the Greek civilization. The Greeks had been passing down stories, by word, of the Golden Age and of the great battles of the Greeks for many years. Homer ...
Many different symbols were utilized in Kate Chopin's The Awakening to illustrate the underlying themes and internal conflict of the characters. One constant and re-emerging symbol is the sea.
"The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, dancing, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace."(32)
Solon, as the story goes, was educated by Egyptian clerics in the city of Sais, placed in the Nile delta, that there was at one time an area significantly more seasoned in history than Egypt, which the Greeks recognized as being hundreds of years more seasoned than their own particular pop culture. The ministers portrayed a huge island mainland called Atlantis that succeeded in the ballpark of 8,000 years prior, which dates Atlantis before 8500 b.c.e. The landmass was placed past "the Pillars of Hercules," the Greek term for the sharks that structure the Straits of Gibraltar, the westernmost purpose of the Mediterranean Ocean. Past the straits is the Atlantic Ocean.