Cultral Life in Ancient Greece Essay

Many have deemed Homer and Hesiod the “founding fathers” of Greek epic poetry and philosophical writings. Both writers’ careers flourished around 8th century B.C, and were immense influences in the world of Greek philosophy. Hesiod focuses on more traditional origins of life for his stories and ensures that the creation of the world and its rulers are embodied in his works. Homer has been considered one of the most influential philosophical writers for centuries by recognized philosophers. He wrote about principles in battle, governance, counsel, sports, the home and life in general that the Greeks looked to in praise. While both of the authors were similar in writing style, they differ vastly in the messages of their poems.

Ancient Greece has been a religion- centered culture since the earliest period of habitation in Greece, the Pre-Mycenaean/Mycenaean period. Also through to the Dark Ages to the Classical period. It is a religiously centered civilization, and did have significant changes in the how it was incorporated into people’s daily lives. Religion is important to know about the Ancient Greeks because through it we are able to understand how they lived their lives.

    Most people think of a hero as a strong, superior, good-looking person that could never make a mistake. However, in a story called The Odyssey, a connection to real life reveals imperfections to be common in heroes. Each person has their low points and highlights, regardless of their “rank”. The author and epic poet, Homer, exemplifies our main character, Odysseus, to take on this idea of a hero throughout his writing. The time period took place in Ancient Greece, allowing Greek culture to relate to the poem. Different aspects of such culture and history may have influenced the works and creativity of Homer as well. A major point includes The Trojan War because it focuses in on Odysseus’ journey to bring Helen back home by devising a plan to destroy warriors in the city. Acknowledge this factor when reading The Odyssey, for not only evidence of heroism, but also other major points of archetypes, in which the device reflects the insights of readers in modern time and what is seen from Ancient Greek culture.

In Chapter 1, the author assesses the unique and eternal achievements of 5th century BCE Athenian culture. She introduces several basic dichotomies that define her understanding of the writers and events of the period in the later chapters.

Tyrtaeus sees both sides to being a Spartan. On one hand he glorifies the position as moral and puts dying for one’s country at something honorable. But at the same time, he mentions the torment a Spartan experiences when faced with the potential of losing their life for their country and leaving their family behind. The poetry that Tyrtaeus uses in describing the Spartans gives a very vivid image of what the Spartans were like. In Tyrtaeus he tells of ethics, values, and ethos that the Spartans held in high regard. Tyrtaeus first talks about what a Spartan soldier consists of “ … brave and valiant heart… fearless … bear … the bloody carnage of war … faithful to defend His country's cause …” (Tyrtaeus, Martial Elegies, Elegy I). Tyrtaeus is

Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey follows Odysseus on his long journey home. The Epic also includes the stories of Odysseus’ family left behind: the travels of his son, Telemachus, and how plenty, of what we would now call “home wreckers”, suitors pressured his wife, Penelope, into marrying one of them. The characters are beautifully crafted and the story is truly epic. All the elements presented can bring in any reader from any century, the Cyclops, the Gods, the trickery of Penelope, and the disguises of Odysseus, are all legendary literary hooks . There are many things to learn—about writing, about the world around us, the world ahead of us, and the past behind us—from The Odyssey. (26) It is undeniably evident that this ancient text has

A leader’s inspiration contributes to the development of the laws enforced, which leads to a stable society. In Plutarch’s ‘Life of Lycurgus,’ Lycurgus gains inspiration from his travels to Crete, Asia, and Egypt. In Crete, he meets a lyric poet named Thales. Songs by Thales encouraged “obedience and concord, and the very measure and cadence of the verse, conveying impressions of

Alcaeus is very good at fighting and larger-than-life strong, similar to Odysseus in the “Odyssey”. He has a journey that he succeeds with and achieves his goal, because he is very talented and brave: he fights a monster, and gets the stone of immortality from Hades. Alcaeus has a flaw like every hero does: he makes impulsive decisions, does not listen to others’ advices and thinks that he is always right in everything. For example, when his friend Aiden warns Alcaeus not to touch the cursed fruit, Alcaeus doesn’t listen and regrets his rash decision later. The author of the poem demonstrates the ideal qualities of Ancient Greece through Alcaeus: strength, talent, bravery, courage and succeeding in battles and

The Iliad and The Odyssey are two of the most well-known poems produced by Greek thought. Both of these texts are most frequently credited to Homer, though in recent years there has been a conclusion reached that states that both of the texts were written by different authors. In fact, some people agree that The Odyssey seems to have been written by a woman. This fact in itself is one of the main reasons why Achilles and Odysseus are so incredibly opposite. However, for every difference that they possess, their similarities prevail, which is further proof that both of the texts came out of the same time period, written under similar circumstances. Within Homer’s texts The Iliad and The Odyssey, Achilles and Odysseus possess traits that make them appear to be nearly identical at times and complete opposites at others.

This article aims at comparing three versions of D. Merezhkovsky’s poem about the knight Tancred and woman warrior Clorinda (1883) and its source text – the poem by Torquato Tasso “Jerusalem Delivered”. It is demonstrated that with each subsequent version Merezhkovsky departed further away from the primary source – he not only forgoes Tasso’s verbal formulas, but changes sequence of events, i. e. the story’s meaning, which is evidenced by the didactic ending that draws a finish line in the tale of Tancred and

Their aims, the society they describe, their systems of values, the role played by the gods, their cosmovision, as well as their writing and style. In the Iliad we admire the greatness of conception, the beauty and simplicity of the plan, the boldness of imagination, the richness and sublimity of images; We find in the Odyssey a less regular plan, a less brilliant imagination, but one feels attached to a lively interest and a seductive naivete. Besides their intrinsic beauty, the Iliad and the Odyssey had for the ancients the merit of enclosing the theological traditions, the names and origins of the peoples, the description and the situation of the countries, and these two poems enjoyed in these various respects of great

This expansive knowledge of the traditional forms and themes of lyrical and narrative poetry offered sufficient foundations for the formulation of his own highly original compositions. Without the study of the Roman epic poet Virgil’s Aeneid, the 15th century Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso, and, later, Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberate, Spenser would not of been able to create his heroic, or epic, poem The Faerie Queene. Without Virgil’s Bucolics, and the later tradition of pastoral poetry in Italy and France, Spenser would not have came up with and written the The Shepheardes Calender. Lastly, without the Latin, Italian, and French examples of the highly traditional marriage ode and the sonnet and canzone forms of Petrarch and succeeding sonneteers, Spenser could not have written his most notable lyric, Epithalamion, and its accompanying sonnets,

Virgil was Rome’s unwilling epic poet, he gave the Roman people a cohesive narrative that tied them to the past and propelled them towards the future. This narrative, The Aeneid, had its basis in local lore as well as ties to the older Greek epics of Homer. The Aeneid almost functions as an extension of The Iliad and Odyssey, with its protagonist, Aeneas, being a minor figure in the earlier poems, and the work itself academically divided into “Odyssean” and “Iliadic” parts. In this relationship Virgil owes a creative debt to Homer, and there is a resemblance that can be seen with striking clarity when the experiences of Homers’ Odysseus and Virgil’s Aeneas are examined side by side. Odysseus and Aeneas are both honour bound to reach the destinations of their respective journeys, Odysseus to rule Ithaca and Aeneas to found Rome, and while ones journey often mirrors the others, there are significant differences between the two. The major differences that can be observed lie in their characters and forms of heroism and these variations shape the course of their narratives, yet the similarities of their internal journeys and ultimate fates remain intact.

The ancient Greeks and Romans contributed to western civilization in many different forms of literature and architecture. Both of these cultures produced a variety of literary works which are still studied today. One of the biggest contributions to literature was from the author known as Homer. Homer was known for two of ancient Greece’s most epic poems, The lliad and The Odyssey. Both of these poems have had a profound impact on western literature and continue to influence teachers and authors today. “The lliad and The Odyssey have provided not only seeds but fertilizer for almost all the other arts and sciences in

In the 20th century Milman Parry, an American classical scholar, began to draw on the work of the Analysts and Unitarians to establish a hypothesis of an oral Homeric tradition which would prove to be revolutionary. By observing South Slavic oral poetry first hand, he was able to prove that the formulaic structure of Homeric epic was characteristic of oral composition. Due to the pressure of composition in performance, as would have been the norm, he also demonstrated that repeated words or phrases would have been fundamental in the composition of oral epic poetry. Whether these took the form of noun-epithet formulas, larger formulaic phrases or entire scenes, the mnemonic power which they created served to make epic poetry entirely possible. Parry defined these formulas as “an expression regularly used, under the same metrical conditions, to express an essential idea”. Following from Lord’s assessment of the first 15 lines of the Iliad, he estimated that up to 90% of the total poem consisted of formulas or contained formulaic elements. While studying those formulas comprising of a noun and fixed epithet, Parry called attention to the fact that they almost always appeared directly after the mid-verse caesura or after the caesura in the fourth foot and thus conveniently fell into the cola of the hexameter. Now the poet had a vast library of stock phrases at their disposal which they could employ whenever the metre required. Such phrases include ‘ (‘swift-footed Achilles’) and