CLAS 131 FINAL EXAM
Connection between Hymn to Demeter and Cult: Arrival at Eleusis
"Grief in her heart, she sat down by the road, by the Maiden's Well, where citizens drew water" (98-9); "Build me a great temple . . . above Callichoros" (272) - The Kallichoron Well, adjacent to the entrance to the sanctuary, was considered to be the very one Demeter sat by.
Connections between Hymn to Demeter and Cult:
"Let all the people build me a great temple shading an altar, by the city's steep wall, above Callichoros, on the jutting hilltop. There I will teach my mysteries; from now on the holy ritual will soothe my spirit" (270-4) - The Telesterion where the mysteries took place was in fact "by the city's steep wall, above Callichoros [the Kallichoron Well] on the jutting hilltop"
Connection between Hymn to Demeter and Cult: the Kykeon
"Then Metaneira filled a cup with sweet wine to give her. She replied that she must not swallow the deep red drink. She told her to mix water with barley and soft pennyroyal for drinking. The lady gave her this, as she was ordered, and the majestic Deo drank, in ritual" (206-11) - Initiates broke their fast by drinking the kykeōn (Clement)
The Furies Thesis Statement
'In the Oresteia, Aeschylus uses the myth of Agamemnon and his family to celebrate the triumph of communal justice over blood vengeance, the priority of the political community over family loyalties, the dominance of reason and order over the primitive and irrational'.
Allegory
'a figurative sentence, discourse, or narrative, in which properties and circumstances attributed to the apparent subject really refer to the subject they are meant to suggest; an extended or continued metaphor'
Connection between Hymn to Demeter and Cult: The Journy to Eleusis
- "Nine days across the earth majestic Deo roamed, holding in her hands two flaming torches, so anguished that she would not eat ambrosia, drink delicious nectar, or wash her body' (47- 50) - Initiates walked to Eleusis and fasted before the initiation - Torches are commonly associated with the Mysteries (Clement, Lactantius), especially one in each hand
Socrates
- (470-399 BCE) An Athenian philosopher who thought that human beings could lead honest lives and that honor was far more important than wealth, fame, or other superficial attributes. - called himself a philosophos; not a sophist - Never wrote anything, but had conversations with people to encourage them to reexamine their values and beliefs - Executed on a charge of corrupting the youth of Athens and introducing new gods
Xenophanes of Colophon
- (c.570-c.475 BCE) - Contemporary with later Homeric Hymns; two generations before Aeschylus - Composed in meter: poetry - Writings survive only as quotations and references in later writers ('fragments') - the application of logos to ideas about the gods and the rejection of earlier mythic ideas
Oresteia
- A Three play series based on the family of Agamemnon, the Mycenaean king who commanded the Greeks at in the Trojan War-written by Aeschylus, depicting a powerful family (the house of Atreus) torn apart by betrayal, murder and revenge - In the course of the first two plays Aeschylus sets up an apparently insoluble problem: if vengeance is identical with justice, how can there ever be an end to it? - In The Furies, the third and final play of the trilogy, he finally provides a resolution. What is it? - In a nutshell: justice no longer is simply equivalent to blood vengeance. The old principle of blood vengeance within the family is superseded by a new principle: the objective evaluation of the claims on both sides of a case within the jury system (see lines 397-489, esp. 470-89). - The resolution takes place on two levels simultaneously: that of human society and that of the gods.
Satyr Plays
- A short, play which often poked fun at the ancient Greek tragedies - Plots taken from myth: only complete surviving one is Euripides' Cyclops, tells story of Odysseus and the Cyclops - Chorus consists of satyrs and their 'father' Silenus, with their typical behavior: obsession with drinking and sex, bravado mixed with cowardice - Include much humor, but were not the same genre as comedies
Surviving Dionysia Tragedies
- Aeschylus (c.525-456 BCE): seven - Sophocles (c.495-406 BCE): seven - Euripides (c.485-406 BCE): nineteen
The Mysteries at Eleusis
- Annual festival organized around an initiation ceremony - Most Greek religious rituals were performed in public; initiation ceremonies ('mysteries') were secret, open only to past and current initiates, who swore not to divulge what took place in the ceremony - Initiation at Eleusis was available to all, including women, slaves, and foreigners; the only requirement was to be able to speak Greek and not to have committed murder - Celebrated for at least 1000 years, with as many as 3000 initiates a year at its peak - Public aspects of festival well known; details of the actual initiation ceremony still a secret -In the month of Boedromion (August-September)
Apuleius
- Born c.125 CE in Madauros in North Africa - Studied in Carthage (near modern Tunis) and Athens, spent time in Rome - Married wealthy woman in Oea (now in western Libya); led to accusation of magic - Ended up as a celebrity writer and intellectual in Carthage - Last datable writings: early 160s CE - Described himself as a Platonic philosopher
Parallels between Lucius and Psyche
- Both are young people from good families, with all the advantages in the world. - Both of them, through their own fault, become outcasts from society and endure a series of difficult and painful challenges. - Both of them in the end are saved. - Psyche's downfall is caused by her curiosity: her sisters persuade her to ignore her husband's warnings and try to look at him against his will - Lucius' downfall is also caused by his curiosity: he's keen to spy on a witch, despite repeated warnings, explicit as well as implicit, to stay clear of them. - In both stories, the main character insists on seeing something that she or he has been warned not to try to see, and as a result is 'exiled' and undergoes many trials. - in her final trial, she is warned not to open the jar she receives from Proserpina, but she does anyway; as a result, she falls into a deathlike sleep. The intervention of Cupid saves her - Lucius is likewise saved from his predicament by the intervention of a deity, Isis, who appears in response to his prayer and arranges for him to eat the roses that restore him to human form. - Lucius and Psyche both give in to the temptations of curiosity, despite repeated warnings, to see something that they shouldn't; as a result, they fall from a happy state into misery and wander as outcasts in the world. Both are in the end saved not by their own efforts but by the intervention of a deity.
Homeric Hymn to Demeter
- Oldest of the Homeric Hymns - 650-550 BCE - Zeus gives Hades the okay to abduct Persephone Demeter, goddess of agricultural fertility withdraws from world of men and the Earth freezes up - The primary purpose of the story told in the hymn is to praise Demeter by demonstrating her power. - At the end, Persephone is with Demeter only 2/3 of the year; the remaining 1/3 she spends in the Underworld with Hades. - Apparently an aetiology of the seasons, with Persephone's time in the underworld connected with the dormant season and her return to Olympus with the spring (395-403) - But note: the author presupposes this connection and dismisses it quickly; he is much more interested in other aspects of the story, such as the relationship between mother and daughter
Theater of Dionysus
- Performance site of the drama in Athens on the south slope the acropolis; part of shrine to this god - Performances during the day: people in the audience are very aware of each other's presence (compare modern sports events) - held around 14,000 people, no technology so performers had to give BIG performances
Euripides first version of Hippolytus
- Phaedra is intent on having sex with Hippolytus and attempts to seduce him in person - Hippolytus rejects her; Phaedra in revenge tells Theseus that he tried to rape her - Theseus curses Hippolytus, who dies; Phaedra commits suicide (?)
Conventions of Greek Tragedy
- Place: one location, outside - Time: continuous action - Action: no violent action depicted onstage - messenger speech: monologue used to describe violent or otherwise unstageable action that takes place offstage - ekkyklema: a wagon used to bring bodies on stage (as at end of Agamemnon) - Basic format of tragedy: alternation of spoken and sung segments. The chorus performs songs and dances as interludes between the action (also called 'choruses'); these comment on the action but don't contribute to it. -One actor: monologues, dialogues between actor and chorus -Aeschylus adds second actor, and thus dialogues between two actors -Sophocles adds third actor, but three-way dialogues remain very rare - Each actor played more than one part: never more than three characters on stage at one time - There could be additional performers in nonspeaking parts (guards, attendants, etc.) - Actors wore masks with wigs attached; different mask for each character - All the performers, actors, and chorus, were men - Not meant to be realistic at all, but a highly stylized spectacle, combining poetry, music, dance, and masks/costumes - Changes over time: role of chorus generally declines (contrast Oresteia with Hippolytus and Medea)
Choice of Heracles
- Prodicus - allegory at its most obvious - The characters have the names of the things they represent (simple personifications). - The story has an obvious moral or didactic lesson
The Furies: Human Level
- Resolution on the human level: the old principle of blood vengeance within the family is replaced by the new principle of justice administered through the jury system. - What is needed in order to have a jury system? What sort of social system and social assumptions make it possible? - There must be widespread acceptance of the principle that individual grievances must be resolved within the framework of the larger political and social community, that individuals do not have the right to exact vengeance on their own behalf, that in certain contexts the demands of family must give way to the demands of the polis.
Eleusis
- Small town near Athens - Site of the ancient cult of Demeter and Persephone
Myth of Er
- Story by Plato that ends his Republic. A soldier named Er sees the afterlife and reincarnates. Introduced the idea that moral people are rewarded and immoral people punished after death. - After punishment or reward, souls choose new life; drink from River of Forgiveness
Connections between Hymn to Demeter and Cult: the Mysteries
- The Mysteries were performed every year, and initiates never revealed them to non- initiates - In historical times, the chief priesthood at Eleusis belonged by inheritance to the family of the Eumolpids, 'the sons of Eumolpus'
The Nature of Dionysus
- The god who breaks barriers, who frees from restraints, who reverses categories - Civilization imposes restraints; the ancient Greeks deeply valued civilization, but also recognized that its restraints could become too rigid and oppressive; Dionysus embodied the necessary release from those restraints. - When people refuse to acknowledge the need for temporary release, it breaks out more violently, and becomes destructive rather than beneficial.
What's the connection between these historical maenads and the mythic maenads depicted in Euripides' Bacchae?
- The mythic depiction of women driven into a frenzy reflects what actually happened in earlier periods; in historical times, this ecstatic and unpredictable cult was tamed and regularized into an ordered and officially recognized civic festival. - Is the theory true? Impossible to be certain, but contemporary scholars generally think that it's not; more likely that historical maenadism was deliberately created on the basis of the myths.
Cultural Context of Dionysia
- We think of literature as belonging to the private sphere, but Greek tragedy was produced in a public, civic context. - Poets thus had an official public forum for using myth to explore moral, political, and social issues of general public importance; hence Greek tragedy so often examines the human condition. - 3 poets x 3 tragedies a year x about 150 years = a lot of tragedies
Republic
- Written by Plato - very long dialogue centering on the problem of defining justice, but covering a range of topics (ontology, epistemology, ethics, politics) - central part is a thought experiment: if we were to establish an ideal society (polis), how would we organize it?
Myth
- a traditional story, anonymous and variable • Individual authors (and artists) adapt myths to make their own artistic statements by (for example) - dealt with many issues other than the gods. • Myths about the gods provided a way to think about the nature of the gods and the relationship between gods and humans; cult provided another way, one that was not necessarily correlated with myth
The Furies
- avenging spirits; Goddesses that embody retribution for crimes against blood-kin - torment Orestes for killing his mother, Clytemnestra
Plato
- c.429-347 BCE - Follower of Socrates - Wrote dialogues on philosophical topics, often using Socrates as his main character - offers an idea about the gods that is completely at odds with the one found in traditional myth: the gods are not merely more powerful and more beautiful than mortals, but are also morally perfect, perfectly wise, and unchanging.
The Acropolis of Athens
- c.600-480 BCE: primary function shifts from citadel to religious center; temple of Athena Polias ('of the city') and other shrines - 480 BCE: the Acropolis destroyed by the Persians during the Persian Wars - c.450 BCE: monumental reconstruction of the Acropolis begins, with Athens at the height of its power
Aeschylus High Style
- large roles for chorus and lots of sung passages (italics) - slow build-up of tension leading to scenes of high intensity - language difficult, dense, rich with verbal imagery
How did the myths and rituals associated with the Erechtheum help shape the Athenians' sense of their communal identity and civic ideology?
- myths of divine presence and favor for the land and its people, especially that of Athena but also that of Poseidon - Shrine/ Statue maintained significance in their religion
Sparagmos
- tearing apart - cattle and Pentheus in Bacchae - In real life, there were festivals of sacrifices; eatings of raw flesh and tearing apart -
The Furies: Resolution on the divine level
- the new gods win, but the old gods do not entirely lose; rather, they are assimilated into the new system and given a new place of honor. - Compare and contrast Hesiod's Theogony: Zeus triumphs over the Titans and (later) Typhoios, representing the triumph of order and reason over chaos, but the gods he defeats are imprisoned in Tartaros.
Cult
- the particular set of rituals used in the worship of a particular god in a particular place • All cults were local: each polis worshipped a particular subset of gods through its own distinctive set of rituals and festivals EX: Athena Polias in Athens - Some local cults invited all Greeks to take part, and thus functioned as Panhellenic ('all Greek') cults Zeus at Olympia (Olympic games) Apollo Pythios at Delphi (Pythian games)
Pathenon
- the temple of Athena, which stands on the acropolis in Athens - External sculptural decoration: Pediment, Metopes, Frieze
What choices did Euripides make among different earlier versions of the story and what changes did he make to the basic plot?
He makes changes from earlier myth about Jason and Medea: - Jason and Medea are not the rulers of Corinth, but resident aliens and thus in a weak position - Jason's success is due entirely to Medea - Jason deserts Medea to marry the daughter of the king - In response, Medea deliberately kills her own children
The Birth of Erichthonios
Hephaestus pursued Athena, she fled but he got his seed on her, she wiped the seed off with wool and when it fell on the ground, Erichthonios was produced
Woven Things
Imagery of woven things gradually becomes concrete, and a part of the action (the fabric on which Agamemnon walks, the robe in which he's entangled)
Contest of Athena and Poseidon
In [Cecrops'] time, they say, the gods resolved to take possession of cities in which each of them should receive his own peculiar worship. So Poseidon was the first that came to Attica, and with a blow of his trident on the middle of the Acropolis, he produced a sea which they now call Erechtheis. After him came Athena, and, having called on Cecrops to witness her act of taking possession, she planted an olive tree, which is still shown in the Pandroseum.
Cecrops
In myth, the first king (and founder) of Athens; born from the earth; half man and half serpent; father of Pandrosos and her sisters
Erechtheum
Most sacred site on the Acropolis; most beautiful example of Greek Architecture (legend says it marks the site where the god Poseidon and the goddess Athena had a contest to see who would be the patron god of the city...Athena won)
The Furies: Divine Level
Over the course of the trilogy, the gods gradually but steadily move closer to the human sphere. - Agamemnon: the gods are distant and mysterious (see the chorus' 'hymn' to Zeus, 160-183) - The Libation Bearers: the gods become part of the action, although they do not appear on stage (Apollo commanded Orestes to avenge his father; the Furies pursue him for murdering his mother) - The Furies: the gods are major characters in the play. In the trial, the Furies act as the attorney for the prosecution, Apollo for the defense, and Athena as the judge - The competing claims to justice on the human level (Clytemnestra and Aegisthus vs. Orestes and Electra) are matched by competing claims on the divine level (the Furies vs. Apollo)
Did the lost first version of Euripides' Hippolytus present 'the same story' as the surviving second version?
Possibly yes, in terms of the essential elements of the plot; definitely no, in terms of the character of Phaedra, the details of the plot, and (as a result) the overall focus and point of the story
In terms of the principles they advocate, how are the Furies and Apollo opposed?
The Furies are concerned only with murder of one's blood kin; Apollo claims that murder within a marriage is equally important (208-223). The issue centers on the relative value of blood relationships versus socially constituted relationships.
In terms of the generations of gods that they represent, how are the Furies and Apollo opposed?
The Furies, who represent the old principle of blood vengeance, are old gods (children of Night: 415-417); Apollo and Athena, who represent the new principle of justice through the jury system, are young gods (children of Zeus).
Relationship of the Cult to the Myth
The Hymn presents Demeter's experiences in her search for Persephone as the models for the experiences of the initiates (fasting, torches, the kykeōn, etc.) The worshipper identifies with the deity by undergoing in the initiation the same sorts of experiences that the deity is said to undergo in the myth
The Hymn to Demeter, the Myth, and the Cult
We must distinguish the myth from the Hymn; both the myth and the cult predate the Hymn. - Oral myth lies behind specific literary works. In this case, the myth was Panhellenic; other versions located the events in other parts of the Greek world; The Hymn, as always, is just one specific version of the myth. - The cult was originally local, as all cults originally were. It dates back to Early Iron Age, perhaps Mycenaean period; the Hymn, by contrast, is Archaic, c. 650-550 BCE.
Republic Book 2
four main points: - To attribute immoral behavior to the gods is to set a bad example (377d-378e) - The gods are by definition morally good; it is therefore false to say that they cause harm to humans (379a-380c) - The gods are by definition perfect; it is therefore false to claim that they can change shape (380c381e) - The gods cannot by definition be ignorant or weak; therefore they cannot deceive (381e-382e)
'Cupid and Psyche' as Allegory
- Names: Cupid = Love, Psyche = Soul - Some similarities to the allegorical myths in the works of philosophers, especially Plato - Apuleius described himself as a platonic writer and wrote a textbook of platonic philosophy - If we read 'Cupid and Psyche' as a Platonic allegory about the ascent of the soul to the divine through love, the parallels between it and the story of Lucius perhaps indicate that we should read The Golden Ass as a whole as having a serious philosophical/religious message about salvation.
Myth in Ancient Greek Religion
- No sacred scriptures: myth not equivalent to scripture Scripture: fixed in a text Myth: not fixed in a text, but variable - No explicit moral code based on scripture General notion that the gods approved of moral behavior and disapproved of immoral behavior - (1) Since individual cults were almost always local, Panhellenic myths, known to all Greeks, had an important role in promoting the idea that all Greeks really worshipped the same gods - (2) Local myths often served as aetiologies for local cult practices (e.g., the myth of Pandrosos and her sisters and the festival of the Arrhephoria at Athens) - (3) Both Panhellenic and local myths were often visually present at cult sites. - The depiction of the contest between Athena and Poseidon on the west pediment of the Parthenon: background to sacrifices at outdoor altar on the Acropolis - Myth was not the basis of religion in ancient Greek culture, as scripture is in some religions. - Rather, myth and cult were two different systems of dealing with the gods that were largely separate, even though they interacted in various ways. - What we call ancient Greek 'religion' included both cult and (parts of) myth, as well as (parts of) philosophy.
Physical Context of Ancient Theater
- Not an enclosed, interior space, but an open-air space consisting of three parts: - theatron: sloped seating area with benches - orchêstra: circular area where the chorus performed - skênê: small building at back of orchestra serving as both scenery and 'backstage'
Physical allegory
the gods represent aspects of physical world
Cultural context of greek tragedies
• Contemporary western society: a form of entertainment available at most times and in many places • Fifth-century BCE Athens: drama performed only at annual religious festivals in honor of Dionysus (especially the Dionysia in late March)
How does Euripides present the story of Hippolytus?
Euripides at first pushes the audience to side with Medea - Opening speech: Nurse (Medea abandoned by Jason) - First scene: Nurse and Tutor (Medea and her children exiled) - Entrance of chorus: women of Corinth, Nurse, and Medea (woe) - Medea's first speech (solidarity with chorus) - Second scene: Creon and Medea (exile delayed by one day) - Medea's second speech (intention to seek revenge on Jason and Creon) - First choral ode (continued sympathy for Medea) - Third scene: Jason and Medea (Medea passionate, Jason glib and self-serving)
Examples of Woven Things in Agamemnon
- Chorus (355-61): Zeus great king, and you kind Night resplendent in your brilliant glories, you flung that dark mesh, your vast enslaving net, enveloping Troy's ramparts, trawling young and old to all-embracing Ruin. Clytemnestra (866-68): If this man had been struck as often as false rumors flowed into this house, then he would have more holes in him than a net. Clytemnestra and Agamemnon: the tapestry scene (909-74): C: Strew the path of his feet with these fabrics, quickly! . . . . A: Do not bring Envy on me by strewing my path with cloths, only the gods should be honored this way. . . . . A: And as I tread on these lavish sea-red cloths, let no god's envious glare strike me from afar. Cassandra (1114-16 and 1125-26): No! No! What vision is this? I see a mesh of death. A net, it shares the bed, shares the blood! . . . . . Look! There, look! Protect the bull from the cow. The tangling conniving robes. She strikes! Clytemnestra (1372-76 and 1382-85): Words, so many words I have said to serve my needs, and now, finally, I am not ashamed to speak openly. How else could I have hung high the vicious nets and caught my hated enemy in the inescapable trap, all the while pretending friendship? . . . . . I cast my vast net, tangling around him, wrapping him in a robe rich in evil. I struck him twice and he screamed twice, his limbs buckled and his body came crashing down Chorus (1489-93 = 1513-17): Oh my king, how should I mourn you? How can I tell you how much you were loved? Lying there in this spider's web, you have drawn your last breath, such a sacrilegious death.
Ancient Greek Religion
- Cult: the rituals that linked humans and gods: Prayer, Offerings, including animal sacrifice; Divination - Belief implicit in practices, not made explicit in doctrine: Not 'what are your religious beliefs?', but 'how do you show piety to the gods?' - No explicit moral code based on scripture General notion that the gods approved of moral behavior and disapproved of immoral behavior - No separate institution: there was no 'separation of church and state' because there was no 'church'. - Rituals performed by individuals, for their own needs, or more commonly by groups: families (heads of households) and communities (priests and other officials) - The polis was a religious community as well as a political community
Homeric Hymn to Dionysus
- Dionysus easily escapes capture by pirates through miraculous deeds: causes ropes to fall off; causes wine to flow forth, grapes and ivy to grow on the ship; turns himself into a lion, causes a bear to appear, turns pirates into dolphins - Portrays him not only as god of wine, but of fertility, ritual madness, and theater; God who breaks barriers and bursts bonds, who brings freedom from restraint
Aeschylus
- Father of tragedy - Wrote Oresteia - Used myth to contribute to a public/ civic discussion about the nature of justice and about social/ political relations more generally
Maenad
- Female followers of Dionysus - Frenzied women - Worshippers of Dionysus did not simply praise him and make offerings to him, but identified themselves with the god through a kind of religious frenzy and ecstasy - In real life as well as myth, groups of women celebrated rituals of Dionysus on mountains.
The Initiation
- General references to 'things done', 'things said', and 'things shown' - Details remain obscure to this day: only later Christian writers provide any specific information, and its reliability is uncertain
Dionysus
- God of wine - Held thyrsus (staff of fennel topped with a pine cone and often wound with ivy) - A god who is subject to no restraints; a god who can cross the boundary between animal and human
Why did Euripides shape the myth in this way?
- He creates for the audience an acute moral dilemma: we begin (mostly) by sympathizing with Medea, but how far are we willing to go? - In doing so, he pushes the audience to reexamine traditional moral standards and expectations of gender roles
Settings in Myth: usually real places in the ancient Greek world
- Hippolytus: Trozen - Odyssey: Ithaca, Pylos, Sparta - Oresteia: Argos, Delphi, and Athens - Medea: Corinth - Bacchae: Thebes - Hymn to Demeter: Eleusis
Sophists
- Itinerate Greek teachers of philosophy, reasoning, and public speaking - 5th century BCE - helped spread new ideas and new approaches to important questions, especially through the application of logos; often criticized by conservatives who saw them as subversive of traditional values
What kind of people does Euripides portray the main characters Jason and Medea to be?
- Jason: distinctly non-heroic, self-serving, glib - Medea: a victim: a woman who gave up everything for Jason only to be abandoned by him • but also dangerous: clever and capable, determined, and very vengeful
Madea as Moral Agent
- Medea's moral principles, as expressed in her speeches, align perfectly with those of traditional Greek morality (that is, helping friends & harming enemies and concern with public image). -
Dionysus and Mountains
- Mountains constitute wilderness, the absence of civilization - When people are in the mountains, they are less bound by the constraints imposed by civilization - Hypothesis: 'Dionysus is a god associated with release from the constraints of civilization'
Dionysia
- Multi-day festival in Athens that honored god of wine, Dionysius. It featured the production of plays. - Three days: competition of tragedies - City official commissioned three poets to compete - Each poet staged three tragedies and a satyr play on one of the days - Three tragedies could all present one interconnected story (trilogy), but need not - Poets in the competition were awarded first, second, and third prizes - An official civic/religious event: most of the population of Athens in attendance (seating in Theater of Dionysus for several thousand people), as well as guests and visitors
The Golden Ass
- written by Apuleius; the first latin novel - Latin novel in eleven 'books': the only Latin novel to survive complete - Long prose narratives set in 'real world'; the gods do not take part as characters - Independent fictions that are not part of a larger world of myth (contrast epic) - Told in first person by character named Lucius, a young man from a well-off family; set in mainland Greece in Apuleius' present (mid 2nd century CE) - Complex and multi-faceted work - Something for everyone: everything from raunchy sex scenes and gross-out humor to high tragedy and intense religious devotion - Inserted tales: Apuleius includes many stories told by one character to another - What is its overall meaning? - Racy entertainment with a 'respectable' ending tacked on? - Missionary literature: a racy story to get people interested, and then a serious message at the end? - additions and changes made by Apuleius were just so that he could include the story of Cupid and Psyche
Origins of History
-Hecataeus of Miletus: wrote in prose;Periegesis, Historiae, Genealogia - Rationalizing retelling of myth: replacement of fantastic elements with more believable alternatives; an attempt to reverse the process of 'mythicization' and turn myths about the past into history - Herodotus of Halicarnassus; Father of History; Histories
How did Aeschylus differentiate "Agamemnon" from Homer
1. Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon; she kills him on her own, with no help from Aegisthus. 2. Clytemnestra and Aegisthus both have motivations for revenge.; Clytemnestra because Agamemnon sacrificed their daughter, Iphigeneia, and Aegisthus because Agamemnon's dad caused his dad to eat his own kids 3. In Homer, the focus is simply on the infidelity of Clytemnestra and the vengeance of Orestes. 4. In Aeschylus, the murder of Agamemnon becomes part of a series: each deed is tied to (woven into?) the next, and leads irrevocably to it. Underlying idea: the murder of blood-kin requires vengeance
Allegorical Interpretation
Although philosophers generally criticized or rejected the understanding of the world implicit in traditional myth, they nevertheless made use of it, either by reinterpreting old myths or inventing new ones, as a tool for teaching their own ideas.
Myth and History
Characters: with a few exceptions, main characters are humans, generally identified as rulers of identifiable places - Theseus of Athens - Nestor of Pylos, Menelaus of Sparta - Agamemnon of Argos - Cecrops of Athens - Cadmus and Pentheus of Thebes - Retelling stories of the past, it was important to make the story interesting and to emphasize the meaning - It was not important to be accurate about details or to set it in its wider historical context
'Cupid and Psyche': Incongruity
Who does this Venus remind us of? - The jealous female deity in Greek epic and tragedy, such as Aphrodite in Euripides' Hippolytus - But also . . . the wicked stepmother in fairy tales, as for example in Snow White - Apuleius treats the gods of myth like characters in fairy tales - The gods are depicted as people in the everyday world of the time; anthropomorphism taken to the point of absurdity - 'Cupid and Psyche' seems on one level to be a serious Platonic allegory about the soul's union with the divine, an allegory that may shed light on the meaning of his novel as a whole. - At the same time, Apuleius deliberately undercuts the seriousness of this by his use of folktale motifs and comic incongruity; he thereby constantly pushes the reader to rethink what he is really doing.
Dionysus and the Reversal of Genders
Women act like men - Leave homes and weaving; go to the wilderness; are good at hunting Men act like women - King Pentheus ends up dressed as woman with the "effeminate" stranger in control
Sisyphus
a tragedy from which only one long quotation survives; attributed to Euripides by one of the writers who quotes it and by the other to the sophist Critias - the gods as a deliberate fiction, invented as a way to maintain social order
