The Seven Ages Of Man By William Shakespeare And Demeter Retold By Edith Hamilton

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter tells the story of Demeter, the goddess of fertility of grain. Demeter has a daughter with Zeus by the name of Persephone. The hymn explains the strong bond between Demeter and Persephone and how distraught Demeter is when her daughter is abducted. This traumatic event causes Demeter to live among mortal men disguised as an old woman and withdraw the fertility of the earth. In this paper, I will examine how the Homeric Hymn to Demeter operates as a charter myth, or narrative that explains modern practices, and how successful the hymn is in conveying the modern practice.

When two people are in love, they are happy and look past the bad things in one another. "Affection, as I have said is the humblest love. It gives itself no airs," (pg.33 paragraph 3). They look at the good, and can usually ignore the bad. They work together through problems and issues that arise. The two help one another out and make sure they are both doing well. They care for one another the

Lysistrata by Aristophanes is seen to be a comical play used to show the impact of war not only on the ones physically in the war, but the ones mentally involved also. This play was written to help express the feeling the author had about the war occurring during the time the work was written. Lysistrata, the main character, is a strong woman who decides to become as what could be said as being “rebellious”. She does this by refusing to have sexual relations with the men in the city until it was agreed that peace would be declared between the two troops. She calls a meeting with the women in the city and include them in her vindictive ideas to bring the war to an end. This play is sure to bring a smile to the readers face due to the comical events that occur. However, comedy is not the only thing that becomes apparent within the play. Throughout the work of Lysistrata there are three themes that become apparent during this play: peace and harmony, control by gender, and politics.

“The Seven Ages of Man” begins as “All the world’s stage,/ And all the men and women merely players;/ They have their exits and their entrances,/ And one man in his time plays many parts,/His acts being seven ages (Shakespeare 1-5). The cycle of man beings as an infant in a nurse's arms and ends as an old decrepit person. The cycle of man is more than that, it is the cycle from birth to death for all of us. The story of “Demeter” is the cycle of her losing her daughter for four months every year and her missing her during those times. “Demeter did not refuse, poor comfort though it was that she must lost Persephone for four months every year and see her young loveliness go down to the world of the dead” (Hamilton 101-013). As Demeter’s daughter goes back to the underworld each year she stops allowing food to grow. Demeter’s cycle of seeing her daughter and losing her for the four months a year is also the cycle of the seasons, winter when Persephone is in the underworld and spring, fall and summer while she with

One of the overarching themes that spanned over the many books we read over the semester, was the nature of love and the search for meaning. Love is an inherent aspect of humanity, and while it is an often inexplicable and complex sentiment, it is intrinsically connected with mankind's search for meaning in life. Love often leads a person in directions that they do not expect, and this is obvious in the very different applications of love in different books. However, one common idea about the relationship between love, suffering, and wisdom, can be argued for based off the ancient texts that we read. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Antigone, and The Tale of Genji, love is used as a vehicle for wisdom through suffering and loss.

The Underworld—an ultimate challenge, facing the darkest parts of human nature or dealing with death

In the play, “Oedipus Rex”, many ironies took place, as well as fate playing a huge part in the story. “Oedipus Rex” is a story about a man that tries to overcome adversity but cannot escape his prophecy. His parents took him to a hillside as an infant, sliced his Achilles tendons and left him there. A shepherd soon came to his rescue. “King and Queen of Thebes, gave their infant to a shepherd in with orders that he be left on the side of the mountainside to die” (Johnson 1205). As he grew older and much wiser, he went to see the Oracle of Delphi. The Oracle informed him that his destiny was to kill his father and marry his mother. The main ironies in the play are the killing of Oedipus’s biological father, the odd relationship with his mother, and the inability of Oedipus to avoid his fate.

The different portrayals of female characters Antigone and Lysistrata illustrate the fundamental nature of the proper Athenian woman. Sophocles' Antigone allows the reader to see that outrage over social injustices does not give women the excuse to rebel against authority, while Aristophanes' Lysistrata reveals that challenging authority in the polis becomes acceptable only when it's faced with destruction through war. Sophocles and Aristophanes use different means to illustrate the same idea; the ideal Athenian woman's ultimate loyalty lies with her polis. This Greek concept of the proper woman seems so vital when considering Athenian society because both a tragedy and comedy revolve around this concept. The differing roles accorded to

The quotation above serves as the moral for this tragedy, which includes an illustration of the theme as it was applied to the play.  In the drama, Antigone, the theme of the inner struggle between allegiance to human law versus divine

Love, in classical Greek literature, is commonly considered as a prominent theme. Love, in present days, always appears in the categories of books, movies or music, etc. Interpreted differently by different people, Love turns into a multi-faceted being.

In this essay we will be studying the Homeric Hymns, including the Hymn to Apollo, to Hermes, and to Aphrodite, with particular emphasis on the Hymn to Demeter. Although he Homeric Hymns are of unknown authorship and differ widely in date, the Hymns that we will be focused on, are generally thought to have been composed between the 7th and 5th centuries BC (citation). The Hymn to Demeter is unlike the other Homeric Hymns in that Demeter refuses to submit to Zeus, and channels her own authority through her gift of fertility; Demeter displays power as a Goddess through her motherhood, not in spite of it, and affronts the

King Henry the VIII was born in 1491 to Henry Tudor VII and Elizabeth of York, making him their third child, but second son. He was named after his father, Henry VII, and since he was the second son, he was not expected to be King. King Henry VII eldest son Arthur, Prince of Wales was to take the thrown and become King of England, that is until his death unexpected death. When little Henry was ten years old, he attended Arthur and his bride Catherine of Argon’s wedding. Four months after the marriage began, it ended, with Arthur 's death. There was a signed treaty that stated Catherine would be allow to marry the next heir to the throne – Prince Henry. It was considered necessary for a papal exemption to be issued permitting Henry to wed Catherine because she was his dead brother’s wife, and this marriage was restricted in Leviticus. At the time, and for the duration of her life, Catherine denied that her marriage to Arthur had even been fulfilled, so no agreement was required. In any case, both the gatherings in Spain and England needed to make certain of the authenticity of the marriage, so consent from the pope was looked for and got. The marriage did not take place however. Henry became King Henry the VIII of England when Henry VII passed on April 22, 1509, which changed his life forever.

Think of time as a stream, throw a pebble at it. What happens? It ripples right? But the stream heals itself and keeps growing. That same illustration applies for reality. You will always end up where you were supposed to have ended up. Did the characters of these text ever have a say in their life or was it all planned out already, was it fate or choice? In the texts The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare and Pyramus and Thisbe written by Ovid, two young lovers are forbiten to see each other by their parents, but in their devotion to be together they make a plan to try to be together, which fails because of a simple misunderstanding. Which end with the two lovers dieing by there own hands.In the lives of the characters

Through this example, Cassandra shows us how Jace’s outlook on love changed throughout the story- in this quote Alec Lightwood; ‘parabatai’ of Jace, explains to Clary how dissimilar Jace has become ever since Clary became known to him, because this is the first time that Jace has ever ‘allowed himself to love’. A example beyond this text that shows the power of love, is the story of the Russian couple Boris and Anna Kozlov. They got married in 1946 and three days after their ceremony, Boris was called back to his unit in the Red Army. The two never saw each other for 60 years, with Anna’s family being exiled and Boris left in the army with no contact, but they never stopped loving each other. Miraculously, Boris and Anna arrived at the same town after six decades and all their feelings for one another returned. The time spent away from each other had not destroyed the bond they once had. Anna and Boris got married again, and become the lovely old couple everyone admires. “We have a love that moves the sun and all the other stars.”

Furthermore Shakespeare compares “The Last Age” to childishness and oblivion meaning that after you have gone through all the stages everything you have built up demolishes and you start back at the first stage. The last line of the poem helps you to determine how the play ends and because this comparison is made it makes you aware of people in your life that have gone through a few of the stages described by Shakespeare. Giving you the idea that the stages may occur in your life but in the end it really doesn’t matter what you have done, because it will most likely be destroyed. The idea that what you have developed will be demolished makes you wonder what you are doing and have done with your life.