The Role Of Hercules In Popular Culture

Ovid expressed the themes of mimesis, transcendence and eros in his renown literary epic Metamorphoses Book X. Mimesis is looked into in many way throughout this epic. It is considered the act of imitation or to copy in literature. By duplicating reality, such as recreating life events, but it removes from the truth. This theme is especially apparent in the story Myrrha. Cinyras, the son of Paphos, had a daughter named Myrrha.

These new ideas emphasized the spiritual concerns of people instead of focusing on the concerns that were going on in the towns and cities. Another way that Hellenism spread after the conquests of Alexander was because the people of power in some of the states that Alexander conquered believed that they could gain even more power if they adopted Hellenistic culture. This was true for leaders in Egypt, Syria, Judea, Rome, Carthage, and Africa. The spreading of Hellenism during and after Alexander 's conquest greatly changed the Mediterranean, and brought a very different culture to a different part of the world, which helped bring about new ideas and inventions. Judea, Rome, and Carthage all had very different reactions as Hellenistic culture spread; some embraced it with open arms and for others wanted no part of it at all.

Humans have different perspectives and stories change and are told in different ways as time passes. The Greek myth of King Midas and the Golden Touch, for example, has had both its story and characters altered. The short story “The Golden Touch”, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the poem “from King Midas,” by Howard Moss both tell the same story, but has differences in the character portrayal and plot. Both versions have an instigator, someone who gives King Midas the touch.

Many Greek stories are written with a purpose of either explaining something or teaching. For example, a myth is used to either explain a natural event or to teach a moral and an epic is written to tell of an historic or heroic event. The Odyssey is written with many morals of being an “ideal” Greek underlying each event but it also gives history of a war hero returning from the Trojan War. Homer wrote this story almost as a guide for the characteristics each Greek should possess. The epic poem explains the morals of kindness and loyalty in depth.

This book has given me a greater understanding on the Classics as a whole. The book touches on a plethora of classical topics in chapter 2, and often compares the western civilization to our west. The author also gave me better understanding of the time periods. I didn’t know slaves had better treatment than the free people in Persia at the time, or that war was an enormous role in Classics age. From the western civilization class I’ve took earlier this year, this books discuss the importance of money in a war, when Sparta beat Athens, or when Rome beat the Carthaginians because of the new money they received to build ships.

The cultivation of the West opened the door for many things, tempting suitors searching for a new life to toss everything behind them in order to explore the new land. While it worked out better for some than others, the end product has grown into a rich, strong society. Most of those suitors were from Spain or England, but Western Civilization also takes a lot of inspiration from ancient Greece and Rome. Greek culture’s use as a blueprint for most aspects of Western Civilization becomes clear when analyzing and comparing its influence on the development of christianity, structure of government, and influence in literature. Early on in its history, Greece had little to no established laws or leaders.

In the Odyssey written by Homer, The Real Reasons we Explore Space by Michael Griffin, and They Journey by Mary Oliver, they support the idea that people embark on journeys to find out new things about others and learn more of themselves. The following examples in these texts were written by people of very different backgrounds. Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey which is a continuation of the Iliad’s story. People have long argued whether Homer actual existed or if he was falsely credited for the creation of these books. The ancient Greeks credited him with the writing of these tales.

When Roman Mythology was formed the stories did not occur in the natural world, but rather in the city of Rome itself. Although they are both well-known mythologies; Greek and Roman Mythology differ by their source of origin, traits, and time period. Greek and Roman Mythology were created from two different books. Greek Mythology was created in a book called the Iliad. This book was written by Homer.

Vergil references Horace, Ovid, and other ancient writers quite often. Roman literature through various works of other authors touched on military history confining with tragedy, comedians, and history. In Greek, tragedy, especially in Homer’s work, human existence, and therefore love, is based on divinities. Status of both men and women were important in Greek Literature, but not as important as duties and morals. Homer’s

Ancient Greek shaped the ideas of the what art should look like, and Greek culture plays such an important role of building the foundation of the western civilization. His ideas is absorbing, spreading and developing along with the conquered by Rome. Greece is kind of materialism, they barely believe the world in the mental, they prefer the world is all made by material instead. All the art work is the best example of Greece philosophy of life. The ideas of democracy, wisdom, religion is reflected in the Greek artwork, also represent the ancient people’s intelligence and creativity.

Humanism began to take place, and people had thought of the individual and not of religious themes for painting, and how the universe, and the human body worked. How did the rebirth of Roman and Greek culture change people’s perception of the world? The reason for the rebirth of Roman and Greek culture was because of individualism, reasoning, and rational thought. Individualism helped shape the 1350-1700’s by paintings. In the middle ages most paintings were of religious themes, had no real detail, and were always two dimensional.

Shakespeare wrote The First Part of Henry the IV to adhere to an audience that would be familiar with the history and the characters within the play, because it was still considered recent history; however, he did alter the storyline to gear the play in a more tragic direction rather than writing the historical events as they truly happened. Similar to most of his plays, this play had been published multiple times, by several different publishers, which causes some discrepancies between the different versions. MORE DUMMY. A major difference that is clearly noticeable is the titles of the two versions, specifically with the amount of detail the titles give about the plot of the play.

In many ways, Rome adopted its culture—art and architecture, literature, philosophy, music—from Greece. Rome architecture is greatly influenced by Greek architecture. Roman architects continued to follow the principle generated by the classical orders the Greeks had first shaped: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian but are altered. The Romans used these orders with greater freedom than the Greeks, often using elements from each order and combining them on a single structure. Roman buildings are also made with ashlar masonry, using cut stone blocks placed in horizontal courses like the Greek buildings.

In the book Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury, a character voices his opinion of the abnormality of society through a famous greek legend known as the 7 tasks of hercules of which one story depicts a seemingly invincible man but with not only his strength but mind helped him prevail. Hercules defeats his adversary by displacing his enemy from the earth and lifting off away from his nature which correlate tremendously with the dystopian society of Fahrenheit 451. In relation to the 7 tasks of hercules , one of Hercules tasks was his battle against Antaeus, Hercules had to defeat a man of incredible strength more so than even him, but when Antaeus was away from his natural habitat the earth he was weak, just as the people in fahrenheit displaced from their knowledge are weaker as they had no books or thought provoking emotional times, thus being displaced from their habitat of knowledge censored from real life as a whole.

Many know about the idea of the "monomyth," or the hero's journey as an outline for many of our modern books, movies, t.v. series, etc. Joseph Campbell's definition for the hero's journey is, "the quintessential (or best example) of an archetypal myth. " The Disney film Hercules is one of the best examples of Joseph Campbell's monomyth. For instance step one of the hero's journey outline is the Ordinary world. Hercules was born the son to Zeus and Hero.