Reflection Of The Story Of Creation In Ovid's Metamorphoses

To fully understand the poems; Metamorphoses and Theogony, one needs to understand more about the writers. Hesiod was a greek poet, who lived around 700BC, and was inspired by muses to write epic poetry. Theogony is considered one of earliest works and concerns itself with the cosmogony, or the origins of the world and theogony, or the gods, and pays specific detail to genealogy (West, 1996: 521). Ovid, on the other hand, was a Roman poet, born in 43 BC – the year after the assassination of Julius Caesar and lived during Augustus’s reign. It’s said that his father took him to Rome to become educated in the ways of

Hesiod’s main focus in his poem “Theogony” was to emphasize the ways that the world was created by the gods and how the gods fought in order to maintain a peaceful the universe. Hesiod claims to have written this work under “divine inspiration,” suggesting possibly that the gods themselves revealed the story to him. He highlights the fact that gods act based on morality rather than personal gain. When they fight for something, it is for the greater good and because it is ‘just’ in the eyes of Greek traditions. He composed his most famous poem Theogony around eighth century B.C, a story within a poem about the birth of the Greek gods. In the beginning, he claims the very first thing in the universe was chaos, and out of that earth appeared and gives

In ancient Greek Myths, the description of Zeus’ character can range from a heroic leader to that of a vile dictator, depending on the author’s intention. This contrast is especially noteworthy when comparing Hesiod’s Theogony with Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, as Zeus is presented as the world’s protector in the former, while he is portrayed as selfish and ruthless in Aeschylus’ tale.

The Theogony is one of the most well-known sources of ancient Greek Mythology. It was written around 700 BC and delineates the emergence of the universe as well as the gods’ births and origins. Hesiod begins and ends the poem with a reference to the Heliconian Muses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, goddesses of the arts as well as proclaimers of heroes and gods. In the beginning of the poem, Hesiod discloses that by order of the Muses he has to begin and end his stories of the gods with a reference to them (Hesiod quoted by Evelyn-White, Hugh G., Theogony 2004: 29-35).

Unlike other epics written about the Trojan War, Ovid uses a different perspective to describe it. In other myths and epics, the Trojan War is described with power and strength. Ovid describes the war and its heroes with sarcasm and insignificance. His focus is more on the transformations of the heroes after the fact, not their greatest accomplishments, which goes along with the theme of the rest of the epic. Many of the myths in Metamorphoses center around love and infatuation, as well as rejection. The myth of the death of Orpheus dealt mostly with rejection, which eventually leads to two transformations.

The term “dynamic” is often used in literature to describe a character who changes drastically from one point in the story to another. When reading “The Odyssey” an epic poem by Homer, we see that our protagonist, Odysseus, changes throughout the course of the novel. This essay will argue how he changes, and also what changes him, such as his travels, his relationships, and how fate and the Greek gods affect and change him.

From the exile of the poet Ovid arose the epic poem Metamorphoses, a story that follows the creation of the Roman Empire from the beginning of time. Leading up to book XV Ovid continues to paint the gods in an unfavorable manner for their outrageous behaviors. Ovid exhibits a greater respect for those who exert intelligence than those who exceed in battle. Augustus Caesar, the adoptive son of Julius Caesar, was responsible for the exile of Ovid, in an attempt to implement censorship. For these reasons, Ovid disapproves of the deification of Julius Caesar, and, in fact

There is a parallel in Ovid’s Metamorphoses to the relationship between humans and the gods, and that parallel is the story of Apollo and Daphne. Daphne is not human but a minor deity (nymph) of nature that would be submissive to the major deities, as would humans. In this way, one can see that humans are haunted, manipulated, and forced to act in ways that the gods want them to, so that the desires of the gods can be met. The only way for a human, or nymph, to escape the pains of the gods is to be transformed.

The main objective of the essay is to compare the roles of the gods as shown in Ovid’s book and Virgil’s book. The gods are perceived to be differently described in the two books and that makes the analysis of the gods in the essay to be conclusive. Ovid and Virgil are writers in the epic tradition but the way they treat gods in Aeneid and metamorphoses displays a difference. Aeneid was written between 29BC up to 19BC after the battle of Actium was fought in 31BC. The Aeneid was written as a celebration of the various achievements of Augustus and helps in rejoicing the development of Rome during that period of time. The book displays a lot of political propaganda as well as the history of the origin of the Roman people. Contrasted to

In Ovid’s “The Story of Daedalus and Icarus”, Ovid uses characterization to make the characters realistic and vivid and to reveal plot through the characters’ actions, thoughts, speech and physical appearance. Without the characterization of Daedalus and Icarus, understanding “The Story of Daedalus and Icarus” completely is not possible. Ovid hides important pieces of the plot in the text, and wants the readers to reveal the true meaning of the story by looking into the characteristics of the main characters, Daedalus and Icarus. With the view of their wants and responsibilities, the story becomes clear to the reader and the purpose of this story in a poem is revealed.

In Ovid's epic poem Metamorphoses, he uses many transformations of humanoids to explain the existence of many natural entities such as animals, plants, rivers, and so forth. Ovid uses the Roman gods to be the active agents in many of the metamorphoses, although some of them are caused simply by the will of the being. In the Melville translation of Metamorphoses, the stories "The Sun in Love" (book IV, ln226-284) and "Hyacinth" (book X, ln170-239) have occurrences of both agencies of transformation of people into plants. Apollo is the catalyst that causes the metamorphoses in each of the stories. The metamorphoses involved support the concepts of the "Great Chain of Being" and the

Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is about legends of transformations based from classical Greek and Roman mythology, it contained stories about passionate, adulteress romantic affairs between gods (immortals) and mortals (Bevington). Bloom suggests that Shakespeare was denied the ability to invent a plot, thus was prideful in his ability to create and merge, interweaving four worlds of characters into the one play. We see Shakespeare merge folk culture within the play when he created the characters Theseus and Hippolyta, the Duke of Athens and an amazon, who belong to classical myths and legends, the lovers; Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius and Helena are all young people in love – although no record of definite time or place, however represents lovers from every time and place (Bloom). Next we have the magical courtly world of the fairies, which Shakespeare emerged from literary folk lore in the characters of the Oberon and Titania, monarchs of the Fairy realm, Puck and Titania’s fairies. Lastly, Shakespeare created the world of the ‘mechanicals’ who are English rustic artisans – Peter Quince, Bottom, Snug, Flute and Starveling, which Bloom believes these ‘mechanicals’ characters are based from Shakespeare’s own countryside where he grew up. Bloom further goes on to explain that Titania is Ovid’s

Homer and Ovid are two of the oldest, most influential poets that have ever lived. Although they are both poets, they have several differences in their writings. Homer, a Greek poet, is most famous for his epic poems Iliad and Odyssey. Ovid, a Roman poet, is most famous for Metamorphoses a 15 book poem containing over 250 myths. To compare and contrast these two poets and their writing styles, I will use Achilles’ battle with Hector in Homer’s Iliad book 22 and compare it with Achilles’ battle with Cycnus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses book 12. The comparison of these battles will give us a better understanding of these poets different views on the Trojan War.

The personalities of the gods are as broad as there are stars in the heavens, and as such the ways that these gods interact with mortals vary. The purpose of gods intervening with the days of man comes down to two things, good or bad; there are gods who are caring and loving towards mortals while others view man as pawns which they can use for their own personal agenda. A few gods that capture and exemplify the various personalities of the gods can be found in Ovid: The Metamorphoses of Ovid and Homer: The essential Homer: Selections from the Iliad and the Odyssey. Although the ways man and the gods communicate and get each other’s attention are different, there are reoccurring and overarching themes such as desire, and loyalty that make each intervention between gods and mortals similar.

In one word, the author Ovid describes the overall content and theme of his poem with the word “Metamorphoses” in the title. Some relative synonyms of this word among others are; altar, change, mutate, develop, and reshape (metamorphose). But Ovid goes further to describe the theme within the first two lines of the poem.