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Tragedy In Ovid's Metamorphoses
Tragic themes are ever-present in the world of ancient epic. Ancient tragedians often focused on ideas such as mythology, love, passion and violence in their works and these are clearly reflected in epic, especially in Ovid's ''Metamorphoses''. Tragic themes do not simply refer to subject matter however and can also be used in reference to the format of the writing, such as utilizing dramatic monologues, or soliloquies, metatheatre, and emphasizing time and place. Tragedy in antiquity The modern idea of tragedy evokes a very different image than it would in the time of Ovid. Today, the word tragic implies a sense of sad, unfortunate, or pitiful. However, the term at its most basic refers to the idea of tragedy as a poetic genre. Greek tragedy at its most basic refers to a form of theatre that was present in Athens in the 5th century BC. There are only three poets whose works have survived the centuries: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Tragic plays most often depicted well kno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metamorphoses
The ''Metamorphoses'' (, , ) is a Latin Narrative poetry, narrative poem from 8 Common Era, CE by the Ancient Rome, Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''Masterpiece, magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the world from its Creation myth, creation to the deification of Julius Caesar in a mythico-historical framework comprising over 250 myths, 15 books, and 11,995 lines. Although it meets some of the criteria for an epic poem, epic, the poem defies simple genre classification because of its varying themes and tones. Ovid took inspiration from the genre of metamorphosis poetry. Although some of the ''Metamorphoses'' derives from earlier treatment of the same myths, Ovid diverged significantly from all of his models. The ''Metamorphoses'' is one of the most influential works in Western culture. It has inspired such authors as Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, and William Shakespeare. Numerous episodes from the poem have been depicted in works ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tragedy
A tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a tragic hero, main character or cast of characters. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsis, or a "pain [that] awakens pleasure,” for the audience. While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the term ''tragedy'' often refers to a specific Poetic tradition, tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western culture, Western civilization. That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a powerful effect of cultural identity and historical continuity—"the Classical Athens, Greeks and the Elizabethan era, Elizabethans, in one cultural form; Hellenistic civilization, Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as Raymond Williams puts it. Originating in the theatre of ancient Greece ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aeneid
The ''Aeneid'' ( ; or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan War#Sack of Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Ancient Rome, Romans. Written by the Roman poet Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, the ''Aeneid'' comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed. The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the ''Iliad''. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Ancient Rome, Rome and his description as a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous ''pietas'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metatheatre
Metatheatre, and the closely related term metadrama, describes the aspects of a play that draw attention to its nature as drama or theatre, or to the circumstances of its performance. "Breaking the Fourth Wall" is an example of a metatheatrical device. Metatheatrical devices may include: direct address to the audience (especially in soliloquies, asides, prologues, and epilogues); expression of an awareness of the presence of the audience (whether they are addressed directly or not); an acknowledgement of the fact that the people performing are actors (and not actually the characters they are playing); an element whose meaning depends on the difference between the represented time and place of the drama (the fictional world) and the time and place of its theatrical presentation (the reality of the theatre event); plays-within-plays (or masques, spectacles, or other forms of performance within the drama); references to acting, theatre, dramatic writing, spectatorship, and the f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Actaeon
In Greek mythology, Actaeon (; ''Aktaiōn'') was the son of the priestly herdsman Aristaeus and Autonoe in Boeotia, and a famous Thebes, Greece, Theban Greek hero cult, hero. Through his mother he was a member of the ruling House of Cadmus. Like Achilles, in a later generation, he was trained by the centaur Chiron. He fell to the fatal wrath of Artemis (later his myth was attached to her Roman counterpart Diana (mythology), Diana), but the surviving details of his transgression vary: "the only certainty is in what Aktaion suffered, his pathos, and what Artemis did: the hunter became the hunted; he was transformed into a stag, and his raging hounds, struck with a 'wolf's frenzy' (Lyssa), tore him apart as they would a stag." The many depictions both in ancient art and in the Renaissance and post-Renaissance art normally show either the moment of transgression and transformation, or his death by his own hounds. Story Among others, John Heath has observed, "The unalterable mythe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hecuba
Hecuba (; also Hecabe; , ) was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War. Description Hecuba was described by the chronicler John Malalas, Malalas in his account of the ''Chronography'' as "dark, good eyes, full grown, long nose, beautiful, generous, talkative, calm". Meanwhile, in the account of Dares Phrygius, Dares the Phrygian, she was illustrated as "... beautiful, her figure large, her complexion dark. She thought like a man and was pious and just." Family Parentage Ancient sources vary as to the parentage of Hecuba. According to Homer, Hecuba was the daughter of King Dymas (king of Phrygia), Dymas of Phrygia, but Euripides and Virgil write of her as the daughter of the Thrace, Thracian king Cisseus. The mythographers Pseudo-Apollodorus and Gaius Julius Hyginus, Hyginus leave open the question which of the two was her father, with Pseudo-Apollodorus adding a third alternative option: Hecuba's parents could as well be the river go ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyxena
In Greek mythology, Polyxena (; ) was the youngest daughter of King Priam of Troy and his queen, Hecuba. She does not appear in Homer, but in several other classical authors, though the details of her story vary considerably. After the fall of Troy, she dies when sacrificed by the Greeks on the tomb of Achilles, to whom she had been betrothed and in whose death she was complicit in many versions. Description Polyxena was described by the chronicler Malalas in his account of the ''Chronography'' as "tall, pure, very white, large-eyed, black-haired, with her hair worn long behind, a good nose and cheeks, blooming-lipped, small-footed, virgin, charming, very beautiful, 18 years old when they killed her". Meanwhile, in the account of Dares the Phrygian, she was illustrated as ". . .fair, tall, and beautiful. Her neck was slender, her eyes lovely her hair blonde and long, her body well-proportioned, her fingers tapering, her legs straight, and her feet the best. Surpassing all t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medea
In Greek mythology, Medea (; ; ) is the daughter of Aeëtes, King Aeëtes of Colchis. Medea is known in most stories as a sorceress, an accomplished "wiktionary:φαρμακεία, pharmakeía" (medicinal magic), and is often depicted as a high-priestess of the goddess Hecate. She is a mythical granddaughter of the sun god Helios and a niece of Circe, an enchantress goddess. Her mother may have been Idyia. She first appears in Hesiod's ''Theogony'' around 700 BC, but is best known from Euripides's 5th-century BC tragedy ''Medea (play), Medea'' and Apollonius of Rhodes's 3rd-century BC epic ''Argonautica''. In the myth of the Argonauts, she aids Jason in his search for the Golden Fleece. Medea later marries him, but eventually kills their children and his other bride according to some versions of her story. In the ''Argonautica'', Medea plays the archetypal role of helper-maiden, aiding Jason in his search for the Golden Fleece, using her magic to save his life and kills her bro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oresteia
The ''Oresteia'' () is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus in the 5th century BC, concerning the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes, the trial of Orestes, the end of the curse on the House of Atreus and the pacification of the Furies (also called Erinyes or Eumenides). The ''Oresteia'' trilogy consists of three plays: ''Agamemnon'', ''The Libation Bearers'', and ''The Eumenides''. It shows how the Greek gods interacted with the characters and influenced their decisions pertaining to events and disputes. The only extant example of an ancient Greek theatre trilogy, the ''Oresteia'' won first prize at the Dionysia festival in 458 BC. The principal themes of the trilogy include the contrast between revenge and justice, as well as the transition from personal vendetta to organized litigation. ''Oresteia'' originally included a satyr play, ''Proteus'' (), following the tragic trilogy, but all except a single line of ''Proteus' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sophocles
Sophocles ( 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. was an ancient Greek tragedian known as one of three from whom at least two plays have survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those of Aeschylus and earlier than, or contemporary with, those of Euripides. Sophocles wrote more than 120 plays, but only seven have survived in a complete form: '' Ajax'', '' Antigone'', '' Women of Trachis'', '' Oedipus Rex'', '' Electra'', '' Philoctetes'', and '' Oedipus at Colonus''. For almost fifty years, Sophocles was the most celebrated playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens, which took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and the Dionysia. He competed in thirty competitions, won twenty-four, and was never judged lower than second place. Aeschylus won thirteen competitions and was sometimes defeated by Sophocles; Euripides won four.. The most famous tragedies of Sophocles feature Oedip ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hercules
Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the Greek hero's iconography and myths for their literature and art under the name ''Hercules''. In later Western art and literature and in popular culture, ''Hercules'' is more commonly used than ''Heracles'' as the name of the hero. Hercules is a multifaceted figure with contradictory characteristics, which enabled later artists and writers to pick and choose how to represent him. This article provides an introduction to representations of Hercules in the later tradition. Mythology Birth and early life In Roman mythology, although Hercules was seen as the champion of the weak and a great protector, his personal problems started at birth. Juno sent two witches to prevent the birth, but they were tricked by one of Alcmene's servants and se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
