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Ovid

2005-04-25T00:49:27Z

Sbernard:

Ovid was a poet during Rome's Golden Age. His given name is Publius Ovidius Naso and he was born on March 20, 43 BC. His father wanted him to persue a political carrer, but he was much too ambitious and talented for that. He was reading his poetry to audiences by the time he was twenty and by the age of thirty, he was Rome's most famous poet. He remained successful for two decades when his carrer abruply came to an end. Augustus exiled Ovid when he was fifty. The reason for the exile is unclear, but some have presumed that it had to do with a mistake Ovid made with regard to one of his poems. He was exiled to Tomis, which is in modern Costanza, in Romania. His remaining years were spent writing poetry about exile and he died an unhappy man of sixty. Ovid's works before his exile reflects his thoughts, theories, and beliefs about love.

Ovid, born Publius Ovidius Naso in 43 B.C. was one of the most renowned and unmatched among Roman poets. His writing style was not only flamboyant but dissolute especially during the puritanical society in which he lived at the time. The Emperor, Augustus instigated this change that made it unacceptable for licentiousness in public arenas such as education namely literature. There were official charges lounged against Ovid in ad 8, based on the immorality of some of his poetry. Public opinion raised the question that there could have been other reasons for the severity of his sentence, which was banishment to live the rest of his life in Tomi, in a Roman province of Dacia. There are several speculations as to the real reason for his banishment. Some say he was involved in a scandal; having an affair with Augustus’ daughtes, Julia or a relative of Augustus. According to Ovid though, the reason for his exile was the publication of ''Ars Amatoria''; A handbook of seduction and sex for men and women. Ovid’s third wife remained loyal to him but he would not see her or his homeland again. He died eight years later in exile.

Ovid life is defined in three sections by scholars. But it was the middle period that was most noticed because of the release of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''. Considered a masterpiece, ''Metamorphoses'' reveals Ovid’s intelligent and sense of humor into a series of tales from Greek mythology. He changes strategies throughout the epic, leaving the reader with a sense of unexpected twist and turns. He tells stories within stories and Ovid follows characters from one story line to another as well as the friend or relative of the character. But Ovid made sure to keep the consistency of the metamorphosis theme so the reader will understand the epic is not just random collection of stories. Ovid is also deliberate with the progression of time throughout the epic. His poem starts with the flood and continues until the day of Augustus on the throne. However chronology is less important in light of the Ovid’s bold writing style dealing with changes and lewdness of his own perceptions of Roman society which are also reflected in his other writings of this period.

[[Image:http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:tDJv0ErWfzMJ:www.ncf.ca/~ek867/intotrees_ovid.jpg.jpg]]

Works Cited

"The Life and Work of Ovid". ''The Metamorphoses of Ovid eNotes''. 17 April. 2005 <http://www.enotes.com/metamorphoses-ovid/

Euripides

2005-04-04T17:41:26Z

Sbernard:

Euripides, The Tragic Dramatist

Euripides lived approximately 480 or 485-406 B.C. He wrote ''Medea'' in 431. Raised in Athens most of his life but also spent much of his time in Salamis. He died in Macedonia, at the court of King Archelaus. It is estimated that he wrote ninety two plays and during his lifetime he won four first prizes during the annual spring festival of Dionysus in Athens.
Euripides is compared to Aeschylus and Sophocles in his art. But the difference between the writers was Euripides had an ability to bring the mythological story to the layman or on a human level of understanding and reality. It was during Euripides time that the traditional values of the gods were challenged by human intellect and reason. There was also a political and social shift taking place in which woman were beginning to play a more substantial role not only in the theater but in society. His plays were provocative for the times and were concerned with conflicts that sometimes were disturbing to his audience for example Medea killing her children to revenge Jason. In traditional Greek tragedy, the women may have been portrayed as strong or solid to the plot but never with the possibility of breaking the traditional mold set by the gods. The gods regulated the social boundaries but with writer such as Euripides not only challenged but perhaps was considered a heretic in the Greek tradition because of his lack of respect for the Greek gods or their boundaries. Not only did Euripides test the ideas of the day about the gods, women but also about the traditional ideals about men. Jason for example is not considered the hero in ''Medea'' until perhaps Medea killed her children that forced the reader to have pity on Jason. Jason was not a hero based on the traditional qualities of a hero in literature. Jason compared perhaps to Hector of the ''Iliad'' was lacking in character, bravery, and strength. If Hector is our model of a fierce warrior, a family man who was devoted to one woman and courageous in death makes Jason seem a bit deficient in character. The new heroic code that was portrayed by Hector “embodies a new type of humanism. A man is defined as a total being, and not on the basis of one special function, and in which his rights as a member of society proceed from an acknowledgement of that which he had in common with the rest of society, rather than from his particular and special abilities.”(Valsillopulos, para. 41 )

[[Image:http://www.utexas.edu/courses/larrymyth/images/medea/G-Medea%20Kids%20Delacroix.jpg]]

Works Cited

Valsillopulos, Christopher. “Medea and the Reformation of the Tragic Polis.” Social Science
Journal 1994: Vol.31. Issue 4. p435, 27p; Galileo. Academia Search Premier
<http://neptune3.galib.uga.edu/cgi-bin/homepage.cgi>

Homer

2005-02-19T00:15:48Z

Sbernard: /* Biography */

==Biography==
Homer’s ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' are considered fundamental in classical literature. If we are to consider and study the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' then we must look at the one who has been credited with the writing them, which would be Homer. It is widely believed by scholars, historians and literary heads that Homer was blind, is the author, creator, and the executor of the plan of both epic poems, the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey''. It has been considered that Homer could have possibly created both epic poems in the 8th century B.C. Because of the historical and Linguistic evidence in the poems it is also speculated that Homer lived in a Greek village on the west coast of Asia Minor.
It is known that the Greeks did not write for literary purposes, so it has been determined that the poems were passed down orally, therefore going through possibly several revisions (Fordham.edu, para.4). The history of the Trojan War (if in fact the Trojan War happened) was preserved by the stories of the war told from person to person, generation to generation. These stories were probably told in first person of isolated incidents and of their perceived hero and events. When story telling became a profession, classicist called the new profession “bard” (wsu.edu:8080, para. 3). It has been speculated that Homer was a bard, that he made his living as a professional story teller or a court singer.
Along with the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', there does not seem to be any history on Homer. There are several theories about Homer, who he is, where he is from, or the time period the epic poems were written down. There are several speculations about who Homer could have been; one suggestion about Homer’s identity that some may consider a silly notion that Homer’s name spelled backwards and in Hebrew is a form of Solomon as in King Solomon, the son of David and the king of Israel of the Old Testament of the Scriptures (library.thinkquest.org, para, 3). Samuel Butler, a British writer, theorizes that Homer was a Sicilian woman, that wrote the ''Odyssey'' (not the ''Iliad'') and the landscape of the poem was taken from the coast of Sicily and surrounding islands. Butler elaborates more in his book, Authoress of the Odyssey (Wikipedia, Samuel Butler, para. 2). Still others have believed that Homer was a group that named themselves “Homer”.
Some scholars say evidence shows that parts of the poems “belongs to different dates: and the tendency is to credit the composition of two shorter epics dealing respectively with the Wrath of Achilles and the Return of Odysseus to an author of artistic genius, and to conjecture that episodes were added by imitators, now at this point and over a considerable stretch of time, bring them finally to their present form and length” (Fordham.edu, para. 4).
One thing is absolutely true about Homer, he is recognized as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' but perhaps, part of his fame is the mystery that has been a shroud around his identity for thousands of years has contributed to his legendary status.

[[Image:http://academic.reed.edu/humanities/110Tech/blueseahomermap.gif]]

Works Cited

library.thinkquest.org/19300/data/homerhist.htm
Homer. The History of Homer. ... [Iliad] [Odyssey]
[E-texts] [Homer's Greece] [Homer's History]

www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/odysseyBL.html
Ancient History Sourcebook. Ancient History Sourcebook: Homer: The Odyssey.
Translation: Samuel Henry Butcher (1850-1910) and Andrew Lang (1844-1912).

www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MINOA/HOMER.HTM
Bureaucrats & Barbarians, The Greek Dark Ages, Homer.
Richard Hooker, 1996

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Butler
Wikipedia, Samuel Butler (1835-1902). Paragraph 2.

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia.
Encyclopedia article, ''Homer'',para,1

[[Image:http://academic.reed.edu/humanities/110Tech/blueseahomermap

==Influence==

==Social Conditions==

==Poetic Technique==

===Oral Poetry===

===Meter===

===Epithets===

===Similes===

===Formal Rhetoric===

===Repetition===

===Language===

[[Category:World Literature]]

Homer

2005-02-19T00:14:30Z

Sbernard: /* Biography */

==Biography==
Homer’s ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' are considered fundamental in classical literature. If we are to consider and study the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' then we must look at the one who has been credited with the writing them, which would be Homer. It is widely believed by scholars, historians and literary heads that Homer was blind, is the author, creator, and the executor of the plan of both epic poems, the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey''. It has been considered that Homer could have possibly created both epic poems in the 8th century B.C. Because of the historical and Linguistic evidence in the poems it is also speculated that Homer lived in a Greek village on the west coast of Asia Minor.
It is known that the Greeks did not write for literary purposes, so it has been determined that the poems were passed down orally, therefore going through possibly several revisions (Fordham.edu, para.4). The history of the Trojan War (if in fact the Trojan War happened) was preserved by the stories of the war told from person to person, generation to generation. These stories were probably told in first person of isolated incidents and of their perceived hero and events. When story telling became a profession, classicist called the new profession “bard” (wsu.edu:8080, para. 3). It has been speculated that Homer was a bard, that he made his living as a professional story teller or a court singer.
Along with the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', there does not seem to be any history on Homer. There are several theories about Homer, who he is, where he is from, or the time period the epic poems were written down. There are several speculations about who Homer could have been; one suggestion about Homer’s identity that some may consider a silly notion that Homer’s name spelled backwards and in Hebrew is a form of Solomon as in King Solomon, the son of David and the king of Israel of the Old Testament of the Scriptures (library.thinkquest.org, para, 3). Samuel Butler, a British writer, theorizes that Homer was a Sicilian woman, that wrote the ''Odyssey'' (not the ''Iliad'') and the landscape of the poem was taken from the coast of Sicily and surrounding islands. Butler elaborates more in his book, Authoress of the Odyssey (Wikipedia, Samuel Butler, para. 2). Still others have believed that Homer was a group that named themselves “Homer”.
Some scholars say evidence shows that parts of the poems “belongs to different dates: and the tendency is to credit the composition of two shorter epics dealing respectively with the Wrath of Achilles and the Return of Odysseus to an author of artistic genius, and to conjecture that episodes were added by imitators, now at this point and over a considerable stretch of time, bring them finally to their present form and length” (Fordham.edu, para. 4).
One thing is absolutely true about Homer, he is recognized as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' but perhaps, part of his fame is the mystery that has been a shroud around his identity for thousands of years has contributed to his legendary status.

[[Image:http://academic.reed.edu/humanities/110Tech/blueseahomermap.gif]]

Works Cited

library.thinkquest.org/19300/data/homerhist.htm
Homer. The History of Homer. ... [Iliad] [Odyssey]
[E-texts] [Homer's Greece] [Homer's History]

www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/odysseyBL.html
Ancient History Sourcebook. Ancient History Sourcebook: Homer: The Odyssey.
Translation: Samuel Henry Butcher (1850-1910) and Andrew Lang (1844-1912).

www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MINOA/HOMER.HTM
Bureaucrats & Barbarians, The Greek Dark Ages, Homer.
Richard Hooker, 1996

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Butler
Wikipedia, Samuel Butler (1835-1902). Paragraph 2.

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia.
Encyclopedia article, ''Homer'',para,1

[[Image:http://academic.reed.edu/humanities/110Tech/blueseahomermap.gif]]

==Influence==

==Social Conditions==

==Poetic Technique==

===Oral Poetry===

===Meter===

===Epithets===

===Similes===

===Formal Rhetoric===

===Repetition===

===Language===

[[Category:World Literature]]