Women in Ancient Literature: Portraits and Perceptions
Literary Characters vs. Reality:
Analysis of Literary Characters: Focus on key female figures such as Helen of Troy, Medea, and Hecuba, and their influence on the portrayal of women in ancient literature.
Comparison with Real-Life Conditions: How do these characters reflect or differ from the actual status of women in ancient Greek and Roman societies?
Archetypes and Their Significance:
Heroine vs. Antagonist: Examining how these roles influence the perception of women and which archetypes (e.g., the loyal wife, the deceitful seductress) dominate the literature.
Impact of Myths: How do mythical female figures like Aphrodite or Athena influence literary creations and expectations towards women?
Themes and Motifs:
Motifs of Vengeance and Justice: Analysis of how motifs related to vengeance and justice are represented by female characters, such as Electra or Medea.
Love and Sacrifice: Considering how these themes are explored in the context of female characters, for instance in the works of Sophocles or Euripides.
Narrative and Stylistic Aspects:
Narrative Perspective: Investigating whether and how the female perspective is represented in ancient literature through direct narration or monologues.
Style and Form of Expression: Analyzing how the speech and actions of women are portrayed in literature and what this says about their societal role.
Cultural and Historical Context:
Evolution of Female Characters: Tracking how portraits of women have evolved from the early works of Homer to later Roman literature.
Socio-Political Impact: Understanding how changes in society influenced the literary representations of women, such as during the transition from the republic to the empire in Rome.
Reception and Modern Interpretations:
Feminist and Modern Interpretations: Reviewing how contemporary approaches to gender and equality affect the reinterpretation and evaluation of female characters in ancient literature.
Adaptations and Cultural Impact: Examining how female characters from antiquity are adapted and reinterpreted in modern media and literature.
Category: Ancient literature
You will be required to write one shorter research paper with one of the literary works from the semester as your central focus. The paper must be 1,500-2,000 words (six to eight pages) in length and include at least two outside sources (the text itself does not count as one of these sources).
Your paper should analyze the literary work using a clear and specific critical lens. For example, you could analyze the text using a cultural or historical lens, focusing on how the literary work reflects the cultural/historical society that it represents. Another option would be to analyze the text through a gender focused or feminist reading, discussing how gender roles are represented in the text. Yet another option would be a literary analysis, looking at how a specific theme or style in the work of literature is developed through the storytelling choices of the author(s). Your outside sources should clearly and specifically support your topic and your thesis.
You must make references, with appropriate quotations, to the text. You must use at least twooutside sources and use the MLA format for citations. A “works cited” page is required.
The final paper will be graded on the following criteria:
–The paper is written in clear, engaging grammatically correct standard formal English, with few to no typos or grammatical, syntax or formatting errors.
–The paper has a clear, specific and direct topic and an original thesis, which is supported throughout the paper.
–The paper is well organized and focused, presenting evidence and analysis that supports your thesis in a logically developed and easily understood argument.
–The paper successfully incorporates at least two high quality outside sources to support the argument presented.
–The paper meets all the requirements of the assignment, including the minimum length assigned.
Your final draft must be uploaded to Blackboard using SafeAssign in proper MLA format, using Times New Roman 12 pt. font, double spaced with one-inch margins. Do not use a title page. Late papers are not accepted.
Your post should answer one question or your take on that question based on interesting primary sources.
• do NOT answer each question in order
This week…
The case study for this module is on the nature of relations between Black and white people in colonial America.
INSTRUCTIONS
* ALTERNATE ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES
A literary handbook and a glossary of literary terms give the following definitions:
Theme: The central or dominating idea in a literary work….. In POETRY, FICTION and DRAMA it is the abstract concept which is made concrete through its representation in person, action, and IMAGE in the work. (Thrall and Hibbard, 486).
Motif is a term now applied to a frequently recurrent character, incident or concept in folklore or in literature. (Abrams, 51)
Write an essay (4 pages, double spaced, 11 or 12 point), on what you consider to be the major theme in the Odyssey of Homer and Inferno of Dante. Describe how this theme is introduced, developed and expressed and then pronounce an opinion, in conclusion, about how successful the authors were in putting it across.
Include in your essay a reference to at least one motif in each work, showing how it supports what you regard as the theme.
As an example: in the Odyssey a clear motif would seem to be the ever present watchfulness and intercession of the gods; for instance Athena in lives of those she especially loves: Odysseus and Telemachus.
In the Inferno, a constant motif might be the (need for) the help and company of a guide or mentor: Virgil, in Dante’s wanderings in the Underworld—to keep him from straying too far from his original purpose…
Works Cited:
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Based on an earlier book (1941) by Dan S. Norton and Peters Rushton. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1957.
Thrall, William Flint and Addison Hibbard. A Handbook to Literature. Rev. and enlarged C. Hugh Holman. New York: Odyssey Press, 1960.
I’ve given you 3 of the sources. You must choose 2 from those. You must find the other 2 as relating to critiques.
Essay based on “Their Eyes Were Watching God” – Zora Neale Hurston
People of color have always theorized—but in forms quite
different from the Western form of abstract logic. And I am inclined
to say that our theorizing (and I intentionally use the verb rather
then the noun) is often in narrative forms, in the stories we create,
in riddles and proverbs, in the play with language, since dynamic
rather than fixed ideas that seem more to our liking. How else have we
managed to survive with such spiritedness the assault on our
bodies, social institutions, countries, our very humanity? And
women, at least the women I grew up around, continuously
speculated about the nature of life through pithy language that
unmasked the power relations of their world. It is this language, and
the grace and pleasure with which they played with it, that I find
celebrated, refined, and critiqued in the works of writers like [Toni]
Morrison and [Alice] Walker. My folk, in other words, have always
been a race for theory… 1
The impetus for writing The Bluest Eye in the first place was to
write a book about a kind of person that was never in literature
anywhere, never taken seriously by anybody—all those peripheral
little girls. So I wanted to write a book that—if that child ever picked
it up—would look representational…
Yes. Stories. There were two kinds of education going on: one was
the education in the schools which was print-oriented; and right-side
by side with it was this other way of looking at the world that was
not only different than what we learned about in school, it was
coming through another sense. People told stories… 2
“One writes out of one thing only – one’s own experience…
Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this
experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can give…”
“A writer is by definition a disturber of the peace. He has to be…He
has to make you ask yourself, make you realize that you are always
asking yourself, questions that you don’t know how to face.”3
1 (Christian, Barbara. The race for theory p.41, 198
The above quotes reflect different authors’ perspectives about writing and
producing work that expand the idea of intellectual production beyond the
academic walls. They reflect the tradition of sharing knowledge in forms that
are not always considered intellectual enough.
Those affirmations illustrate the discussions we have held in this class this
semester. Throughout these months, we discuss the importance of Africana
Intellectuality and how Black people’s activism, daily resistance and creativity
walk side-by-side with our intellectual production.
After considering the statements above, this assignment requires you to write a
6-8 pages paper (+ bibliographical references) on your selected novel. Although
this assignment is individual, you will use it to justify your group’s presentation
topic.
The idea is to contextualize how this book is part of the Africana Intellectual
Thought. Your work explains how the work and the author you selected match
the main concepts and discussions we held this semester. Please refer to the
feedback I provided for your presentation and review the issues for this paper.
You will find your object of analysis, introduce it, and justify how and why it can
be considered part of the African intellectual canon.
Your text must include:
A justification for your choice A literature review of the t Historical contextualization (year, time, decade / local, global, author/artist
– A justification for the choice
– A literature review of the topic
– Historical contextualization (year, time, decade / local, global, author/artist
Conclusi
compare and contrast of the Book The Illiad, and the Book Virgil, comparing and contrasting Achillies, and Aeneas
Hi! I would like an essay about Muhammad Iqbal and his poetry. The guidelines are as follows: Citing your sources: Each student will prepare a 8-to-10 pages final research paper focusing on
specific poems or tradition of poetry. For references, please use footnotes. When you cite a source in a footnote,
please use the full form of each publication at first mention, and abbreviate to author’s last name
and brief title in subsequent references
This is from my textbook. It will not allow us to share. I will copy certain themes. The assignment is an Adaptation Comparison and Review. The first two pages are of my text. I am looking to compare the movie O Where Art Thou? with the Odyssey since each is an epic itself.
I am having a lot trouble trying to comapre and contrast both the Odyssey and the movie O’ Where Art Thou? I understand they are in different eras, but the charaters and plot in
O Where Art Thou? has me thrown off. I copied the cast of characters of the movie if
needed.
Homer:
Oral poets in ancient Greece used a traditional form (a six-beat line called hexameter), fitting their own riffs into the rhythm, with musical accompaniment. They also relied on common themes, traditional stories, traditional characters, traditional descriptors (such as “swift Achilles” or “black ships”), phrases that fit the rhythm of the line, and even whole scenes that follow a set pattern, such as the way a warrior gets dressed or the way that meals are prepared. Fluent poetic ad-libbing is very difficult; these techniques gave each performer a structure, so that stories and lines did not have to be generated entirely on the spot. We know that the tradition of this type of composition must have gone back hundreds of years, because the Iliad and the Odyssey include details that would have been anachronistic by the time these poems were written down, such as the use of bronze weapons: by the eighth century, soldiers fought with iron.
The precise anatomical detail reminds us how vulnerable these warriors are, because they have mortal bodies—in contrast to the gods, who may participate in battle but can never die.
The plot deals with the exchange or ransoming of human bodies. Achilles’ anger at Agamemnon is roused by a quarrel about who owns Briseïs, a young woman Achilles has seized as a prize of war but whom Agamemnon takes as recompense for the loss of his own captive woman, Chryseïs. The story also hinges on the ownership of dead male bodies: the corpses, in turn, of Sarpedon, Patroclus, and Hector. War seems to produce its own kind of economy, a system of exchange: a live woman for a dead warrior, one life for another, or death for undying fame.
Fascinatingly, the Iliad makes the Trojans as fully human as the Greeks. The Trojan hero, Hector, seems to many readers the most likeable character in the poem, fighting not for vengeance but to protect his wife and their infant son. The Iliad culminates in an astonishing encounter, between Priam, king of Troy, and Achilles, who has killed his son Hector. The experience of grief is common to all humans, even those who kill each other in war. The major contrast drawn by the Iliad is not between Greek and Trojan, but between the humans and the immortal gods.
The most important fact about all the warriors in the Iliad is that they die. Moreover, before death humans have to face grief, dishonor, loss, and pain—experiences that play little or no part in any god’s life. Achilles in his wrath refuses to accept the horror of loss: loss of honor, and the loss of his dearest friend, Patroclus. His anger can end, and he can eat again, only when his heart becomes “enduring,” and he realizes that all humans, even the greatest warriors, have to endure unendurable loss and keep on living. The Iliad provides a bleak but inspiring account of human suffering as a kind of power that the gods themselves cannot achieve.
The Odyssey is particularly concerned with the laws of hospitality, which in Greek is xenia—a word that covers the whole relationship between guests and hosts, and between strangers and those who take them in. Hospitality is the fundamental criterion for civilized society in this poem.The Odyssey has elements we associate with many other types of literature: romance, folklore, heroism, mystery, travelers’ tales, magic, military exploits, and family drama. As the first word indicates, this is a poem about humanity.
Summary: As Achilles, angry with Agamemnon, stays out of the fighting, the Trojans make a series of successful attacks against the Greek forces. They are led by the greatest of the Trojan heroes, Hector, son of Priam and brother of Paris, who leaves behind his wife and infant son to challenge the invading army and defend his home. When Hector brings the Trojan soldiers right up to the Greek ships, ready to set them on fire, Agamemnon acknowledges that he made a mistake to alienate Achilles, and sends messengers (including Odysseus) to try to persuade the hero to return to the war. But Achilles holds out, and the fighting continues. Many men die on both sides. Finally Achilles’ friend, Patroclus, volunteers to fight in his place, borrowing Achilles’ own armor. He is killed by Hector. Hector strips Achilles’ divine armor from Patroclus’s corpse. A fierce fight for the body itself ends in partial success for the Greeks; they take Patroclus’s body but have to retreat to their camp, with the Trojans at their heels.
The Book of Shields.
Summary:Achilles finally accepts gifts of restitution from Agamemnon, as he refused to do earlier. His return to the fighting brings terror to the Trojans and turns the battle into a rout in which Achilles kills every Trojan that crosses his path. As he pursues Agenor, Apollo tricks him by rescuing his intended victim (he spirits him away in a mist) and assumes Agenor’s shape to lead Achilles away from the walls of Troy. The Trojans take refuge in the city, all except Hector.
The Death of Hector
SummaryAchilles buries Patroclus, and the Greeks celebrate the dead hero’s fame with athletic games, for which Achilles gives the prizes.
Difficult Choices
Summary: The Phaeacians send Odysseus back to Ithaca with gifts. Athena meets him and together they plot to kill the suitors. Athena disguises Odysseus as an old beggar, and he visits Eumaeus, the old slave who takes care of his pigs. Athena goes to Telemachus and instructs him to come back home. While boarding his ship, Telemachus meets Theoclymenus, an exile who is skilled in prophecy; when they reach Ithaca, there is a good omen. Telemachus leaves Theoclymenus to stay with Pireaus.
Iliad: The Wrath of Achille
Summary: As Achilles, angry with Agamemnon, stays out of the fighting, the Trojans make a series of successful attacks against the Greek forces. They are led by the greatest of the Trojan heroes, Hector, son of Priam and brother of Paris, who leaves behind his wife and infant son to challenge the invading army and defend his home. When Hector brings the Trojan soldiers right up to the Greek ships, ready to set them on fire, Agamemnon acknowledges that he made a mistake to alienate Achilles, and sends messengers (including Odysseus) to try to persuade the hero to return to the war. But Achilles holds out, and the fighting continues. Many men die on both sides. Finally Achilles’ friend, Patroclus, volunteers to fight in his place, borrowing Achilles’ own armor. He is killed by Hector. Hector strips Achilles’ divine armor from Patroclus’s corpse. A fierce fight for the body itself ends in partial success for the Greeks; they take Patroclus’s body but have to retreat to their camp, with the Trojans at their heels.
In Popular Culture
The stories of Achilles in popular culture include:
The 2004 movie Troy, based on Homer’s Iliad, stars Brad Pitt as Achilles and Orlando Bloom as Paris.
The comic book character Achilles, in the Marvel pantheon, is a Holocaust survivor with supernatural powers of strength and vulnerability.
The 2011 book The Achilles Effect: What Pop Culture Is Teaching Young Boys about Masculinity, by Crystal Smith, examines the impact of the Achilles figure on today’s American boys and men.
Source:
Essay by Jacob Howland, Odysseus Against the Matriarchy, Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2019 Page
Source:
Dimrock, George. “The Name of Odysseus.” The Hudson Review 9 (1956), 52-70.
The Odyssey focuses on a solitary man who must find his way to the new post-war reality.
George Dimock argues in his essay “The Name of Odysseus,” means “to cause pain [to oneself and others] Page 98
Jacob Howard “The Odyssey is a drams of cultural and political suicide that plays out between vicious extremes of masculinity and femininity.
Jacob Howard- The matriarchal social reckoning now afoot in the United States aims to produce a society composed essentially of domesticated children. Page 99
Jacob Howard – Today’s fiery ideologists, male and female alike, have forgotten that human life is a whole greater than the sum of its parts, and the struggle of civilization against chaos. P 99
O Homer, Where Art Thou?: Teaching the Iliad and the Odyssey through Popular Culture
O Brother, a Depression-era romp with a smooth-talking, smoothly coifed escaped convict, opts for the folktale Odyssey. Each film then reflects a different side of the epic itself.
Source: Mallory Young
Tarleton State University
Stephenville, Texas, USA
Research Paper
Each student will be required to write a research paper on a topic relevant to the class material. The paper is due at 11:59pm on May 5 – no exceptions. Late papers will be docked one grade-level for each day they are late, counting from a 24-hour period beginning at 11:59pm on May 5. Papers will not be accepted after May 12.
The papers are expected to range from 10-15 pages (double-spaced). Remember these three rules: retain a focus, be specific, and cite the relevant ancient evidence. You must demonstrate to the reader upon what sort of evidence you are basing your conclusions, and you must cite the (ancient) evidence you are using to substantiate those conclusions.
Use of internet sources as supplementary is acceptable but they must be fully cited in your footnotes and bibliography, just as books and journal articles. Plagiarism will result in a zero. The papers must be relatively free of spelling and grammatical errors and not rely on AI-generative text. Spell and grammar checks are useful tools, but they are often flawed and do not replace a careful, manual proofreading. Sloppiness in presentation will adversely affect your grade. Actual quotations should be limited so that they do not occupy too much of the paper. All sources must be cited in proper formats and listed in a bibliography at the end. Footnote style is up to you, but use an accepted format and be consistent. For stylistic questions, consult The Chicago Manual of Styleor a similar reference work.