In Aristophanes’ Peace written in 421 BCE, the automatist utopian trope of food is used to satirize 5th century Athens, particularly the aristocracy. In the opening scene of the play, two Athenian slaves are kneading cakes made of dung for the pet dung beetle of their master Trygaeus (Peace 1-2). Cakes are generally viewed as a decadent treats. However, theses cakes are not made out of appetizing ingredients but dung. These dung cakes are meant to parody Athenian obsession with food. After all, scholars agree that Aristophanes lived in a “food obsessed comic world” (Compton-Engle 326). The dung beetle also appears to serve a role in satirizing the aristocracy, “this beast…no food is good enough unless I first waste a whole day handling it…Go on, eat the lot, you big shit beast… the gluttonous beast! Look at him” (Peace 35-38). In this instance, the beetle will only eat the dung after it has been kneaded into a cake for one day. It is possible that the dung beetle represents members of the Athenian aristocracy, of which would be most selective with the preparation of their food. In Peace, the automatist utopian trope of food is used to satirize war. In an early scene, the comic hero, Trygaeus is overlooking the god, War, tossing different types of food into his mortar. In this passage, the food that War tosses into his mortar are meant to be representative of different Greek city-states, “War:(Takes a bunch of leeks and drops them into the mortar) In you go, Leek City,
Food played a pivotal role in the daily lives of all persons in Vichy France during World War II. The finding and gathering of food consumed long hours of the average person’s life through ration cards and queques. The search and the worship of food was an integral part of life to all people from the general public to the Resistance Fighters. Food is a necessity of all life, for the Nazi Germans it was a tool to control the Vichy French Regime and people as the daily hunted for food and reveled in eating it.
Many people believe that fate has planned out their lives and despite efforts on their part what was meant to happen, will eventually happen. This belief has been handed down over the centuries from some of the first civilizations, such as the Greeks. However, not all Greek citizens wanted destiny to take control of their lives. Some decided to choose freewill over the will of the gods. In Oedipus the King, Sophocles writes a cautionary tale meant to warn the doubters in Greek society that regardless of their beliefs in gods and prophecies, it is necessary to heed their warnings. Oedipus, Jocasta, and Laius are Sophocles’ characters that prove that escaping one’s fate is not possible, as each of their predicted fates is realized despite extensive efforts to thwart them.
Erotic love presents itself in two different ways—the traditional pursuit of a soul mate and a more abstract way—according to Nussbaum’s interpretation of Plato’s Symposium it has “two kinds of value [and] two kinds of knowledge” (Nussbaum 312). The first kind of knowledge and value is described by Aristophanes and Alcibiades, which defines love as the pursuit of wholeness. It constructs the idea that life is about finding the other half, Aristophanes explains a tale of traditional Greek mythology which reveals the concept of humans once being whole, but as punishment were separated into two beings, as a result life became the desire to become one again. Furthermore, Alcibiades contributes to Aristophanes description of love by telling his own life story of being unable to find his other half and describing himself as enslaved to love. Considering both accounts, Aristophanes and Alcibiades both share the common thesis that erotic love is defined by “[human] desire to be complete” (Plato 21). Despite Alcibiades contradiction of the theory through his fear of rejection, frustration, and loss; it is still prevalent because lessons can be learned from his hardship. Only through experience can this form of erotic love be understood. On a completely different page of understanding Socrates and Diotima argue the pursuit of being ‘whole’ is merely just a step towards the pursuit of erotic love. Socrates discloses erotic love as a ladder, starting with loving one person and progressing to loving the soul, eventually loving the form of beauty itself. Furthermore, Socrates argues loving the form of beauty exceeds the risk of frustration and rejection—the Forms are a constant that will never fail to please an individual. He believes the pursuit of knowledge through love’s desire for wisdom is the purpose of erotic love. However, his perspective is found to be abstract and complicated, his view is “removed from affection for concrete human beings” (Nussbaum 281). Particularly, it is difficult to understand his idea that human life could exist without jealousy, fear, affection and the emotions mixed with love. Ultimately, humans are drawn to relationships and connections with others; to introduce the notion that erotic love
The Lysistrata of Aristophanes Aristophanes was a satirist who produced Lysistrata around 413 BC when the news of Athen’s warships had been destroyed near Sicily. For twenty-one years, while Athens was engaged in war, he relentlessly and wittliy attacked the war, the ideals of the war, the war party and the war spirit. This risked his acceptance and his Athenian citizenship. Lysistrata is probably the oldest comedy which has retained a place in modern theatre. It primarily deals with two themes, war and the power of sexuality.. Lysistrata (an invented name meaning, She Who Puts an End to War) has summoned the women of Athens to meet her at the foot of Acropolis. She puts before them the easy invitation that they must never lie again with
Bing! Bang! Boom! Cannons, bombs, destruction, arrows, swords, fists, and guns are things that we associate with war. But, what is war? Is war a fight? Is war a disagreement? Is war a conflict? Are all wars bloody? Are all wars violent? Are violence and war inversely related? Are all wars politically motivated? Are Wars self motivated? War is described as described as being “collective violence waged between violence waged between two or more opposing groups that have been armed and organized for that purpose.”(Lecture) In ancient texts such as the Iliad, Thucydides ’Funeral Oration’, and Herodotus on the Battle of Thermopylae all show how war was an essential part of life in the ancient world.
In the play “Plato’s Apology of Socrates” and “Plato’s Crito”, Plato and Aristophanes convince their reader that years of traveling, learning and observation have allowed Socrates to make a strong and compelling argument about why he’s a valuable asset to the Athenian society, and through numerous discussions and actions Socrates has proved how citizens can help make a just Athenian society.
Aristophanes in the Symposium (172a-223d) suggest that love is a desire for belonging with another. In order to explain this view he presents a myth. The myth is as follows. In the past there have existed people with a completely different constitution. These people existed as giant ball. These people had one head, two sets of legs, two sets of arms, and two sets of ears. These people existed in pairs that were either male-male, male-female, or, male-female. These people were blessed with great strength, so much so that the gods were worried. The gods could not smite them all because if they were to do so they would lose the worship and reverence the people gave them (190c-191a). The gods decided to cut these people in two in order to halve their strength. In other words, Aristophanes in this myth posits that people are merely a half of a whole human. For example, every part of the person has been split up evenly. The
In Sophocles’ 5th century Greek tragedy Oedipus the King, Oedipus Rex infamously murders his father and weds his mother in a bout of dramatic irony. This engenders the predicament of whether these crimes are justifiable or not. Those who are procrustean in regards to Oedipus’ crimes may insularly claim that they cannot be rationalized. However, further acknowledgement of this quandary brings forth the idea that Oedipus’ crimes of patricide and incest are clearly justified by how his lack of phronesis is inherited, his unawareness influences his actions, and his fate is ultimately under the gods’ control.
A reader uses a biographical perspective to understand why the author wrote their story. “A knowledge of an author’s life can help readers understand his or her work more fully” (Meyer 1361). The author may have incorporated a situation that happened in their personal life within one of their written stories. This helps the reader to get a deeper perspective of what is happening throughout the story.
In the ancient greek world, warfare was seen as a necessary evil of the human condition. The vast reward of war could outweigh the cost in materials and lives. In the early stages of greek warfare in the Archaic period. Training was Haphazard and even weapons could be makeshift. War is the father of all and king of all.
-Plato depicts an infamous dinner party, where several profound figures analyze love and two speeches in particular are significant.
Within the development of Europe, one would think that religion and politics played the key roles in shaping the regions, in which they did, but many individuals don’t realize the true impact of the role spices played in the evolution of the economy and expansion of Europe. Food alone represented a vast field of human experience and shaped peoples’ beliefs and values, aesthetics and most importantly their social attitudes toward one another. Spices contributed to these attitudes, providing a potential window for the individual to change their understanding of the political and social life of certain cultures and nations. The main question that the author, Paul Freedman poses within the text is, why did the Europeans and the Romans before
After a long day of marching through unknown territory, a meal was what soldier wished for. Sadly, they often did not have any food. One soldier wrote, “I am glad to hear that your crops are as good and I hope that all the folks are good because we don't have nothing to eat here, and so I hopes you have got something to eat there” (soldiers). Another soldier requested his
One day in 399 B.C., the man championed as the founder of Western philosophy stood before a jury, accused of “corrupting the young,” “not believing in the gods” of Athens, and believing “in other daimonia that are novel” (Plato, “Apology” 24b). Three hours were given to Socrates’ accusers, and another three for Socrates to defend himself. He was then given a choice: death or exile. To many it was startling that such vague accusations led to even a mention of death, especially in a radically democratic Athens which prided itself on freedom of speech, yet here Socrates was with death right in front of him.
What has been noted by Historians and scholars has been the effect of WW1 on World Peace.