Tracing Changes in Pythagoras' Speech 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

He maintains his focus on Greek myths not only because of the sheer number of myths around the world, making it impossible to interpret and clarify them all, but also because European men, who would have been familiar with the myths from Greece, write most of the classics we analyze. He explains that these myths are not only a part of them but also “so much a part of the fabric of our consciousness, of our unconscious really, that we scarcely notice” (Foster, 51). Which suggests that, we can recognize Greek myths even if we do not realize it. With this simple fact presented to us, we no longer wonder why allusions to Greek myths have been used since they emerged and are still employed today. Myths are often exercised as “overt subject matter for poems and paintings and operas and novels” but more often “writers have…borrowed from and emulated” these myths (Foster, 52, 53). Instead of explaining every detail about every character, place or moment authors rely on other stories, such as myths, to expand and develop their tale. The writer will subtly hint at myths and hope you recognize their allusions to these old legends. Since we established that, we know these myths, whether consciously or not, we can take these allusions and decipher any hidden meanings the author has for us, giving each story a new level.

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 three themes present in these tales of creation are chaos, sin, and transformation. From the beginning we see how God brings order to chaos, not creation out of nothing. Chaos is the primordial state of existence in Greek myth, and hence, these stories have an immense effect on the way people think of the universe. Chaos has a pervasive presence not only in the physical world but also in the lives and actions of human beings as Lycaon’s case represents. Ovid described Chaos as “a huge agglomeration of upset”. By separating and transforming material object and living being, the creator god imposes rational order on unruly matter. Thus, transformation is another important theme in these tales of creation. This shows that the Greco-Roman community

Throughout history, tales of great heros, gruesome monsters, beautiful enchantresses, and mighty gods have been told. One such tale that is very important to the greeks is the Odyssey. The main character, “Odysseus, was very important to the greeks because he was relatable to the greeks because he was a mortal man who relied not on superhuman strength, but the power of his own mind” (Mr. Carroll). Although clever, Odysseus has many flaws, and because he was greedy, arrogant, and he lets his crew die, Odysseus is not a hero.

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

In the Poetics, Aristotle provides an outline of how the artist is to portray or represent the perfect Tragedy. A Tragedy, of course, was nothing more than a drama, in which the characters appeared "better" than in real life (in a comedy, they appeared "worse," according to Aristotle). Aristotle's Poetics makes several references to other dramatic works to illustrate his points, but he most commonly calls upon The Odyssey to support his argument for how a dramatic structure should be designed. However, along with the Odyssey, Aristotle extensively references Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Both poetic works were enormously popular in their time (the former had been passed down orally for generations, and the latter won the top prizes at the dramatic festivals). Therefore, Aristotle is comfortable using both to support his viewpoint concerning Tragedy and the Tragic Hero. This paper will analyze the standards that Aristotle sets out concerning the definition of the Tragic Hero and show how Sophocles' Oedipus exemplifies Aristotle's definition of a Tragic Hero.

“The story that the dreamer remembers combines the two classical versions even though they are, or seem to be, irreconcilable. This reconciliation is, we must remember, an act of memory protected by the fiction of the dream; it can be most easily seen in the composite character of Aeneas. He is Virgil’s epic hero and Ovid’s false lover, admirable and treacherous. As such, he and his story are an appropriate visual summary of the value of fame which is inherently ambiguous. From his memory of two old things, the dreamer has created a “new thing” an eccentric retelling that recognizes the validity of conflicting truths in history – “fals and soth compouned” (Buchmaster 284).

The role of literature is very important in a citizen’s education and one could argue that the work of literature, Metamorphoses by Ovid is especially vital in a citizen’s education. Specifically, the two stories from Metamorphoses “Ajax and Ulysses”

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.

Continuing in the epic form, the opening lines of the poem, indeed follow the time-honoured epic tradition of announcing the theme and invoking divine assistance (Ovid). "Metamorphoses'" narrative method involves many of the devices of the epic manner: long extended similes, catalogues, famous heroic figures, quests and journeys, feasts, battles, heroic speeches, councils of war, and a supernatural plane to the action (Ovid). The range and precision of Ovid's references to the classical epic tradition in articulating the program of Metamorphoses establishes the poem's generic alignment with epos (Keith 239).

The heroes in The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, and Oedipus are all men that share many traits, but are not the typical heroes that 21st century readers today may relate to. Instead, they are flawed men who must overcome great challenges. However, heroes play a vital role in the ancient epic texts that are still enjoyed today. Without the hero, there would be no tale to tell, and the stories of Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Oedipus, would be unknown to us. Understanding the role of the hero, and the differences between heroes is useful to better understand the literary masterpieces within the context of the times they were written in as well.

An ancient prose narrative, all versions of “Arachne and Minerva” warn readers of the consequences facing those who disrespect the gods by recounting Athena’s actions when faced with mortal hubris. In studying prose narratives, William Bascom defined a valid myth as one: set in an earlier world, focused on a main character of a divine nature, and considered sacred and true by its original audience. Ovid’s “Arachne and Minerva” adheres to Bascom’s definition of a myth because it was viewed as a truthful account of the past, detailed the goddess Athena’s true process of addressing human disrespect, and focused the legitimate divine repercussions that follow

Transformations from one shape or form into another are the central theme in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The popularity and timelessness of this work stems from the manner of story telling. Ovid takes stories relevant to his culture and time period, and weaves them together into one work with a connecting theme of transformation throughout. The thread of humor that runs through Metamorphoses is consistent with the satire and commentary of the work. The theme is presented in the opening lines of Metamorphoses, where the poet invokes the gods, who are responsible for the changes, to look favorably on his efforts to compose. The changes are of many kinds: from human to animal, animal to human, thing to

In Herakles, Euripides teaches the reader of the idea of holding onesself to a higher standard than that which is described of the gods, in doing this he expresses ideas concerning myths consistent with Plato, Critas, and presumably other contemporaries, yet unfortunatly his play may fall into a phenominon described by Gorgias. While Euripides along with an eliete cadre of philosphers may hold the aformentioned beliefs themselves, it seems evident that these beliefs as presented in the play lay in the trap of being percieved as only an arousal of fictive passion.