Help with assgn needed in 24 hours (7)

Get perfect grades by consistently using www.assignmentgeeks.org. Place your order and get a quality paper today. Take advantage of our current 20% discount by using the coupon code GET20


Order a Similar Paper Order a Different Paper

due in 24 hours

attached

Task 8 ASSIGNMENT: Aeneid (Book VI) and Odyssey 

TASK 8Read the selections from the Aeneid:  Book VI (http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.6.vi.html) and the selections from the Bhagavad-Gita 


https://bhagavad-gita.org/index-english.html (Links to an external site.)

or the Ramayana :  CANTO CXXX.: THE CONSECRATION (
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry501.htm (Links to an external site.)
).

Read the Odyssey 
https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-odyssey

 

WORLD LITERATURE I

 

Activities for Virgil’s Aeneid (Task Eight)

 

Read through the Virgil Study Guide and all of the listed Activities before making your selection. Make a copy of the Activity question to begin your response. Post your Activity to the Forum in Unit 2 in JICS. These Activity entries must be thoughtful; each one should be the equivalent of at least a full typed page or more in length (e.g. not less than 250 words).  They may be longer if you need to say more on your topic. You will not be able to do these Activity entries properly unless you have carefully read the assigned literature.

 

· In Book I of the Aeneid, Aeneas is presented as a new kind of hero, who wills to do what he has to do. Compare/contrast Aeneas to Odysseus or Gilgamesh, who do what they please and even get the gods to cooperate at times. Do you have any ideas about why they are such different sorts of heroes? Use specific examples from the Odyssey, Gilgamesh and/or the Aeneid to support your ideas.

 

· Compare Kalypso and Kirke in the Odyssey (Books V and X) to Dido in the Aeneid (Book IV). Concentrate on how they delay the hero’s journey. Do you see any similarities? Differences? Explain and support your ideas using examples from both texts.

 

· Being beloved by a deity has advantages, but can also create problems. Compare the relationship of Odysseus with his patron goddess Athena to Aeneas’ relationship with his goddess mother Venus. Do you see any interesting similarities? Differences? What do these relationships tell you about the nature of the Greek and Roman gods? Explain your ideas using supporting examples from both texts.

 

· Irrational, “anti-fate” behavior in the Aeneid is mostly concentrated in the females, human and divine. Select several of these females to consider. List each one with a brief explanation of her irrational actions and attributes. Do you think Virgil is saying something about women’s behavior in general? What? Be specific and support your ideas with examples from the text. You may want to explore the website Diotima for background information about women in the Aeneid.

 

· Book VI of the Aeneid presents the Underworld as a place for purification, punishment, prophetic information, rest and recreation between lifetimes. The Odyssey presents Hades as a vague and boring place where everyone goes after death and no one leaves. However, the dead have some kinds of knowledge that the living do not. Compare/contrast these two visions of the underworld and try to make some interesting point about their differences. Support your ideas with specific examples from Book VI of the Aeneid and Books XI and XXIV of the Odyssey. Note: the textbook does not include all of book VI of the Aeneid, so if you choose this Activity, go to the Course Materials Table on the Course Home Page to get the electronic text of the full book VI.

· Virgil was cherished throughout the Christian Middle Ages as a most virtuous poet, even though he died in 19 BCE., a few years before Jesus was born. Virgil was concerned with issues of divine will and how a good man could align himself with that divine will, and these were issues that medieval Christians also were interested in, although their answers were quite different.

 

· Read the Sermon on the Mount (Volume 2, 1209-1213) OR online (see Course Materials table on Course Home Page) and compare the ideas of how to be a good human being presented there with the ideas about how to be a good human being that you find in the Aeneid. Note that these ideas are VERY different from Virgil’s, yet both are deeply serious thoughts on how a good person ought to act. Support your ideas with plentiful examples from both readings.

 

· Compare Aeneas’ journey to the underworld with that of either Gilgamesh or Odysseus. In what ways are they similar? How are they different. So what? Support your ideas with plenty of specific examples from the two stories you choose to write about.

 

· The Aeneid ends abruptly when Aeneas kills Turnus in Book 12. Why do you think Virgil ended his epic like this? What point was he making? Or do you think he would have changed the ending if he had lived to complete his revisions of the Aeneid? Develop your ideas using specific examples from the Aeneid to support them.

 

· What about poor Dido? Do you think she was to blame for what happened to her? Was Juno? Venus? Aeneas? Explain your answer with examples from the story. If you choose this Activity you should read at least Books 1-4 of the Aeneid before writing about it.

 

· Reread the scene of Dido’s suicide carefully. Notice all the witchcraft involved. Do you think that Virgil uses this to make us less sympathetic to Dido? If so, why? Is Dido dangerous? Can you find echos of Circe or other negative women or goddesses in her? Support your ideas using specific examples from the story.

 

· Fate is a crucial concept in the Aeneid. Start by getting a good definition of fate from a dictionary. Be sure to copy it in quote marks and cite the source. Then look in the Aeneid for several places where fate is mentioned and discuss each example, explaining what you think Virgil meant by “Fate.” Do you think his concept of fate is like the dictionary definition? How? Be specific and support your ideas with plenty of examples from the Aeneid. Is either the dictionary concept of fate or Virgil’s like yours? How or how not? Give specific examples to support your insights here.

 

· Aeneas developed a tainted reputation among some medieval writers. Among other things, he was reputed to be homosexual and reputed to have collaborated with the Greeks to betray Troy, so that he could escape from the conquered city. Can you see any aspects of Aeneas in the Aeneid that might have led to such a degrading of his character? Do you think Virgil meant to include any negative traits? If so, what do you think they were? Be very specific, supporting your ideas with examples from the Aeneid.

 

· Go to Roman Power and Roman Imperial Sculpture. Read through the text and think about how the Aeneid was a product of this world. Augustus was, in a sense, the real world hero of the Aeneid, as well as the ultimate patron for whom Virgil wrote. Look through the images and select a few that seem to you especially relevant to the world of the Aeneid. Identify and describe them and explain in specific detail how these images affect your understanding of the Aeneid.

 

· Virgil’s Aeneid and Exodus from the Hebrew Bible both tell about a somewhat reluctant, god-selected hero who leads his people out of disaster through many dangers and difficulties to the ultimate goal of a promised country (which must be fought for) and a great heritage. Compare the characters and experiences of Moses and Aeneas to see what they have in common and see if you can identify any profound ways in which they are different. This is a complex topic and you must use specific examples from both the Aeneid and Exodus to support your ideas. Use a version of Exodus from the Hebrew Bible. Use the link to the Hebrew Bible in Module One.

Module 3 Research

Module 3: Research: Find an article or video that teaches you something new about The Song of Roland or The Arabian Nights. Post it to the Discussion Board. 

Module 3: Reading Quiz 1

Unit 3:  Reading Quiz 1:

Read the 
Sermon on the Mount (Links to an external site.)
. Then, read the 
Song of Roland (Links to an external site.)
How far from early Christian ideals have these Christian soldiers in the Song of Roland come?

– Your answer should be about 250 words. 

– Be specific about where in the text you see the soldiers either following or violating the ideals listed in the Sermon. Ideally, shoot for 3-5 examples. 

This answer should be entirely your own work. Do not copy an answer from an online source. If you quote from the assigned texts, don’t forget to use quotation marks (ex: “Blessed are the pure in heart”). 

Task 3: Activities for Roland

Unit 3:  Response Paper 1:

Choose a prompt from the 
Roland Activities (Links to an external site.)
 page. 

Compose a five paragraph essay responding to the prompt.

Follow the guidelines below as you compose your essay:

– Your essay should be at least 250 words. 

– Be as specific as you can. Support your points with details from the text. Prove that you read the book!

– Indicate at the beginning of the essay which prompt you are responding to. 

– There is no requirement to include introduction and conclusion paragraphs, but you may if you wish.

Plagiarism Reminder

The essay should be in your own words. Do not copy an essay from an online source. If you use language from the texts, use quotation marks (Example: “Sing, Muse, of the man of many ways . . .”)


http://www.europeanamericansunited.org/school1/Traditional/Roland.htm (Links to an external site.)

 

 

Read through the 

Roland Study Guide

 (Links to an external site.)
 and all of the Activities below before making your selection. Make a copy of the Activity question to begin your response. Upload your Activity here.

Why did Roland wait to blow his horn? Look closely at the three horn blowing discussions and explain what their purpose is in the poem. Use specific examples from the poem to support your discussion.

Roland is a hero; Charlemagne is a king. Compare/contrast their characters and roles. Could Roland fit into some ancient epic such as the 
Odyssey
 or 
Gilgamesh
? What about Charlemagne? Is he like any other king you have read about? Support your discussion with examples from 
Roland
 and from some other ancient epic.

Look through 
Roland
 to find examples of Saracens (Muslims) represented as evil, deceitful and demonic. Do you think this was a normal way to write about strangers at that time and in that place? What do you think motivated such hostility? Discuss this issue using plenty of specific examples from the poem to support your ideas.

Compare the expression of monotheistic faith in Sura 1, “The Exordium,” from the 
Koran 
(to the descriptions of the pagan, idol worshipping infidels in Roland. Do you think the 
Roland 
poet was genuinely ignorant of Muslim religion, or that he had his own agenda and reasons for presenting the Saracens as demonic heathens?

Sura 5, “The Table,” from the 
Koran
 talks at some length about Christians and Jews, and their relation to Islam. 
The Koran
 accepted both Christians and Jews as “people of the book,” but asserted that the 
Koran 
was a correction to errors that had crept into these earlier monotheistic religions. Discuss the attitudes towards Christians and Jews that you find in “The Table” and compare it to the attitudes towards Muslims that you find in 
Roland.
 What are the significant differences? Do you find any interesting similarities? Be specific in your responses and refer to examples from the texts you are analyzing.


Roland
 is one of a group of early French epics, or “chansons de geste” which have been compared to American Western movies: fighting men, horses, buddies, no women, good versus evil, etc. Do you agree? If so, select a particular Western movie and compare it to 
Roland
 in some detail. Be sure to support your ideas with plenty of specific supporting examples from 
Roland
 and the film, and be sure to explain “so what.”

Compare the relationship of two sets of buddies: Roland and Oliver and Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Do you see any relevant similarities? Any interesting differences? And, so what? Be sure to go into plenty of specific examples from both texts to support your ideas.

Compare the roles of Charlemagne in 
Roland
 and Aeneas in the 
Aeneid
. Both are in charge of world class empires, or at least their beginnings, and both fight “holy” wars of a sort, Aeneas to fulfill Roman destiny, and Charlemagne to free Europe of the pagan infidels. Both seem to suffer a lot and neither has a good time. Compare them in some detail, using specific examples from both text to support your ideas.

Read about the life of Charlemagne in any good encyclopedia or history of Europe, or look at Einhard’s brief, readable 

Life of Charlemagne

 (Links to an external site.)
, written in the ninth century, and compare what you find out to the presentation of Charlemagne in 
Roland
. Why do you think there are so many differences? Do you think the 
Roland 
poet was aware of how he was changing Charlemagne into a Christian saint, or do you think this had already happened in the centuries since Charlemagne’s death? Explain your position referring to specific information you have read about Charlemagne and specific examples from the poem.

Do you think the Roland poet knew the “Sermon on the Mount” from 
The New Testament
? If so, how do you think he interpreted it? Was this the key to his idea of being a good Christian? If not, what was? Explain in some detail, using specific examples from both texts, and be sure to develop an interesting point (e.g. SO WHAT?)

Some critics have suggested that epic poems such as 
Roland 
were composed in monasteries along pilgrimage routes, to help drum up tourist traffic. Would this help to explain the god-like quality of Charlemagne and the warrior-saint nature of Roland? Or is this too cynical a view of a great poem? Give your opinion, but support it with specific details from the poem, and, ideally, a few facts from an encyclopedia or some such (be sure to cite the source of your information).

For all its extremist religious politics, 
Roland
 presents a picture of surprisingly democratic interaction between the peers and the emperor. Look closely at the way decisions are made, both at Charlemagne’s court and in the field, and describe in some detail the process of debate and consensus that guides the nobles in their actions. Can you think of any other story you have read in this course that involves such democratic processes? Or is democratic even the right word for this struggle for consensus among the aristocracy? Comment and support your ideas using specific examples from the story. If you deal in lots of comparative detail with a second story too, this can be worth double credit.

Explore 
The Military Martyrs
 (Links to an external site.)
 and discuss in detail how this concept of the fighting saint may help to explain Roland’s role in the battle and his final ascent to heaven. Be sure to give specific examples from the Military Martyrs pages and from Roland
 to support your ideas. 

When Roland finally does blow the horn, he bursts a blood vessel in his head, and this causes his death.  Why do you think this is how he dies? Hints: Can you explain its link to the horn-blowing episodes? Can you explain its connection to the absolute superiority of Roland to the “pagans?” Can you connect Roland’s means of death to the angel coming to receive his glove (his fealty). Use specific examples from the poem to support your ideas.

Activities for The 
Song of Roland 

by Dr. Diane Thompson, 
NVCC (Links to an external site.)
, ELI

Module 3: Reading Quiz 2

Module 3:  Reading Quiz 2: 

Compare 
Roland (Links to an external site.)
 to the other epic heroes we have encountered so far in the course, Gilgamesh and Odysseus. 

What characteristics does he share with each of them?

How is he different from them?

Out of the three of them, whom do you feel is the most “heroic”? Why?

– Good answers should be about 250 words.

– Support your claims with specific examples from the text. Prove that you did the reading!

Plagiarism Reminder

This quiz should be entirely your own work. Do not copy answers from online sources. If you quote from the text, remember to use quotation marks (Ex “Blessed are the pure in heart”)

Week 8 Discussion Question

Roland is in the tradition of Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Aeneas, and the other epic heroes we have studied this semester.  What do you think makes him a epic hero?  Why do you think many westerners do not know of him as well as they know other heroes from western culture?

Task 6. The Arabian Nights Activities

TASK 6. Read through all the Arabian Nights Activities. Then select one of these questions to answer for this Activity, and upload it here.

WORLD LITERATURE I

 

TASK SIX:  Activities for The Arabian Nights

 

Read through the Arabian Nights Study Guide and all of the Activities below before making your selection. Make a copy of the Activity question to begin your response. Post your Activity to JICS, UNIT 3, Forum, Task Six,  Activity 7: Arabian Nights Forum. These Activity entries must be thoughtful; each one should be the equivalent of at least a full typed page or more in length (e.g. not less than 250 words).  They may be longer if you need to say more on your topic. You will not be able to do these Activity entries properly unless you have carefully read the assigned literature.

Women in the 
Nights
. Look closely at the character and role of Shahrazad in the main story frame. She is a hero, because she saves her own life and the life of many of her people, yet she lives in a culture where men buy and sell women and cut off their heads when they are displeased. Compare/contrast her to a female character in a story you have read earlier in the semester. Be sure to use plenty of specific detailed examples from both texts to support your ideas, and don’t forget to make some interesting points.

Speaking of “off with their heads,” look at the way kings behave in the 
Nights
. They are able to make a poor man rich or a rich man dead on an instant whim. What kind of government do you see operating in the 
Nights
? Describe it in as much detail as you can find in the stories you have read. Are there any good points to this kind of government? Any serious problems? Would you want to live there?

Select two or three interesting demons (or jinnis) or other monsters in the Nights
 and compare them to monsters you’ve met earlier in the course. Can you think of any ways in which they are similar? How are they different? Can you think of any reasons why? Be sure to use plenty of specific examples from the texts to support your ideas.

Compare the attitudes toward that which is foreign, strange and amazing in the 
Nights
 to the attitudes towards foreigners and differences in 
Roland
. Which side of the Pyrenees (mountains dividing France from Spain) would you prefer to have lived on in the twelfth century? Why? Please support your choice of location with plenty of specific examples from the two texts.

In the world of the 
Nights
, there are good, pious demons, and bad, impious demons, but all demons seem to obey certain rules or laws. Explain exactly what kinds of laws/rules demons do seem to obey. Do you have any idea why this is so? Support your position with examples from the stories.

If you are very ambitious, you might want to read or reread “Gawain and the Green Knight,” which is in online at 


Sir Gawain


 (Links to an external site.)
, and compare it to “The Story of the Merchant and the Demon” in the 
Nights
. Both are tales of keeping faith to meet with a magical fellow on New Year’s Day who intends to cut off one’s head. If you choose this one, I’ll leave you to pose your own question and figure out how to answer it in less than a book. 

Several stories in the 
Nights 
give examples of why it is better to be just than to be unjust. Find at least three such examples and explain what is the nature of justice in the 
Nights
 as you understand it. Give examples, of course, and try to find the point to it all.

Stories in the 
Nights
 range from the pious to the bawdy. Select one of each and try to see how they belong in the same collection, or do they? Explain and support your position using examples from the stories, not from your own opinions.

Destiny, or fate, or predestination is an important thread running through the stories of the 
Nights
. This expresses, at least in part, the ideal of a good Muslim, which is to submit to God’s will. Select two or three stories that express this idea, compare/ contrast them to one another, and see what conclusions you can draw about the role of destiny in the 
Nights
. Use specific examples from the stories to support your response.

Compare the idea of destiny in the 
Aeneid 
to the frequent references to predestination and fate in two or three stories of the 
Nights
. Do you see any interesting similarities or differences? Explain your insights using a number of specific examples from each text to support your ideas. I suggest starting with reading a good dictionary definition of “destiny.” You may copy and cite it in your essay.

The 
Nights
 is a collection of tales that are organized by means of the frame story of Shahrazad, who is telling stories to save the lives of the other maidens in her country.  The 
Odyssey
 also uses a frame when Odysseus tells the stories of his wanderings to Nausicaa’s folks to persuade them to send him home at last. The 
Odyssey
, like the 
Nights
, was told orally for many centuries in one form or another before being finally written down. Compare/contrast the frames in the 
Odyssey
 and the 
Nights.
 How does each function? And, so what? Use specific examples from both texts to support your ideas.

Read the selection from the 
Koran
, Sura 4, “Women,” (see the link to the 
Koran
 on the Course Materials Table on the Course Home Page) and discuss any connections, similarities or differences you see between its precepts and the roles of women as depicted in the Nights. Note: the stance of the Koran toward women was actually quite enlightened for its time. Women, for example, were allowed some property rights, while in the general society of that time, they had none.

There are fascinating parallels between the story of Sharazad and the story of the Biblical 
Esther (Links to an external site.)
. Both are clever, beautiful women who live in the courts of oriental despots and must use their wits to save the lives of others. Do a careful, detailed compare/contrast of these two heroines, using plenty of specific details from both stories to support your ideas.

Read 
Crescent: a novel 
by Diana Abu-Jaber (Norton, 2003). It is a delightful double tale, partly about Iraqi exiles who work and eat at Nadia’s Cafe in West Los Angeles–their food, their loves and their longing for their homeland–and partly a magical tale in the spirit of the 
Arabian Nights,
 but ending up in Hollywood. After enjoying the book, explain in some detail why you think the author included the magical 
Arabian Nights 
tale along with the more realistic story of Nadia’s Cafe in West Los Angeles. What is she drawing from the 
Nights 
and how does she use it to illuminate what she calls at times the “Arab soul?” Use plenty of specific examples, both from 
Crescent
 and from the 
Nights
 to support your ideas.

According to 
D. L. Ashliman (Links to an external site.)
, “One of India’s most influential contributions to world literature, the Panchatantra … consists of five books of animal fables and magic tales (some 87 stories in all) that were compiled, in their current form, between the third and fifth centuries AD. It is believed that even then the stories were already ancient. The tales’ self-proclaimed purpose is to educate the sons of royalty.” Read a few of these stories and compare them to stories in the 
Nights
 that are told to heal a mad king. Here is a link to a selection from the 
Panchatantra
 (Links to an external site.)
.

Robert Irwin has written a fascinating riff on the 
Arabian Nights
 called 
The Arabian Nightmare
. It tells of a 12th c. English scholar-wanderer who ends up in Cairo under the influence of The Father of Cats who is a corrupt teacher of dreams and sleep. There are many interwoven stories and wonders, including of course talking apes and virgins locked in enclosed gardens. If this interests you, read Irwin’s book (I don’t know if it is in print, but used copies are easily found on Amazon Marketplace) after reading the selections from the assigned sections of the 
Nights. 
Then, compare the two sets of stories in some interesting way.

Make up an interesting question of your own that deals with some aspect of the 
Nights
, and then answer it in fully developed detail. Please run the question by me for a quick response before you go on to write about it. I will not accept such a question unless I have approved it in advance.

Module 2 Tasks

To-do date: 9 Feb at 23:59

TASK 1.  Read the Homer Study Guide, which will give you background information on the Troy Cycle and Homer’s epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey.  It is connected to this document.

 

You may choose to watch the Homer’s Odyssey Video instead. It contains the same information. 
http://learner.org/courses/worldlit/odyssey/ (Links to an external site.)
..

 

TASK 2.  Read the Odyssey at 
http://learner.org/courses/worldlit/odyssey/ (Links to an external site.)
). This is, by far, the longest reading assignment you will have for this course, but it is a delightful story. Just allow yourself plenty of time. If you find it unbearably long, you may select an activity below and then focus your reading on the section of the Odyssey that deals with that question.

 

TASK 3. Read through all the Homer’s Odyssey Activities listed below in this document under the title, Task 3. Then, select one of these questions to answer for Activity 3, and upload it.

 

TASK 4Read through the Greek Drama Study Guide listed below in this document under the title, Task 4.  This will guide you as you select and read a Greek Drama. .

 

You may choose to watch the Greek Drama Video instead. It contains the same information. Home Page. 
http://learner.org/courses/worldlit/bacchae/ (Links to an external site.)

 

If you decide to read this play, here is a link to its text under the Read tab: 
http://learner.org/courses/worldlit/bacchae/ (Links to an external site.)

 

TASK 5. Select and read a Greek Drama. The choices are: Agamemnon by Aeschylus, Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Antigone by Sophocles, Medea by Euripedes or Lysistrata by Aristophanes.

 

Option: You may access free etexts of these epics: Agamemnon, Oedipus the King, Antigone, and Medea at The Internet Classics Archive:


http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/index.html (Links to an external site.)

You will have to select the name of the author, choose the play title, and then the script will come up.

 

Lysistrata by Aristophanes will be found at the Gutenberg Press: 
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7700/7700-h/7700-h.htm (Links to an external site.)
.

 

TASK 6. Read through all the Greek Drama Activities listed below under the title, Task 6. Then, select one of these questions to answer for Activity 4 and upload it.

 

TASK 7Read through the Virgil’s Aeneid Study Guide located below in this document under the title Task 7. This will give you background information on Virgil’s Roman civilization and his epic poetry.

You may choose to watch the Virgil’s Aeneid Video instead. It contains the same information.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EoMREfwe9k (Links to an external site.)

 

TASK 8Read the selections from the Aeneid:  Book VI (http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.6.vi.html) and the selections from the Bhagavad-Gita (
http://learner.org/courses/worldlit/gita/read/ (Links to an external site.)
or the Ramayana :  CANTO CXXX.: THE CONSECRATION (
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry501.htm (Links to an external site.)
).

 

TASK 9. Read through the Activities for Virgil’s Aeneid  and Virgil’s Aeneid/Indian Epic Activities. Then select one of these questions to answer for Activity 5, and upload it.  These activities are listed below under the title, Task 9.

After completing Task 9, go on to Unit 3.

Task One:  Homer Study Guide

To-do date: 9 Feb at 23:59

WORLD LITERATURE I

 

Task One:  Homer Study Guide

TASK 1.  Read the Homer Study Guide, which will give you background information on the Troy Cycle and Homer’s epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey.  It is connected to this document.

 

You may choose to watch the Homer’s Odyssey Video instead. It contains the same information. 
http://learner.org/courses/worldlit/odyssey/ (Links to an external site.)
..

Homer and Troy by Diane Thompson, NVCC, ELI

Homer is the main reason we still know about the war at Troy. He composed two magnificent epic poems about the Trojan War, the Iliad and the Odyssey, around the eighth century BCE. This was about five hundred years after the war may have taken place. Probably one reason that the Trojan War became so important to later Greeks such as Homer was that they considered the Greek victors their ancestors. Another reason was that the Trojan War, if it occurred, came at the time that the Mycenaean Bronze Age collapsed. Thus, its fall represented, at least in story, the last great victory of the Mycenaean Greeks before the collapse of their civilization. Homer lived in a less glorious age. Although Greeks had colonized Asia Minor after the Trojan War, they were no longer as prosperous (or as piratical) as during the Bronze Age. There still was a town of Troy in Homer’s day, and Homer may have lived in the vicinity, earning his living by telling stories about the glorious past of the Greek conquerors.

 

Homer was said to be blind, but his vivid images and stories of Troy have survived and thrived for nearly three millennia. Homer’s Troy is a mixture of some fairly accurate details of the Bronze Age, mixed with details from his own time, and bound together by poetic imagination and elegant, swift-moving language. The Iliad and Odyssey have been so frequently praised, criticized, translated, borrowed from, adapted and imitated that a study of Homer and his literary descendants can easily become a study of the history of Western literary culture, from Troy to the twenty-first century. People have continued to read and imitate Homer because he was a wonderful poet.

 

The Iliad is the poem of Troy; it takes place in the Greek camp, below the walls of Troy, and within the city itself. It is the ninth year of a ten year siege. Achilles, a Greek leader and hero, quarrels with Agamemnon, the high king of the Greek army. They fight over women war-prizes—Chryseis and Briseis. Achilles pushes Agamemnon to return his war-prize woman, Chryseis, to her father, a priest of Apollo, in order to stop plague in the Greek camp. Agamemnon, furious, takes Achilles’ war-prize woman, Briseis, as his compensation. Achilles, even more furious, vows to stop fighting until the Trojan warriors push through the Greek camp up to their ships at the shore. Achilles also gets his goddess mother, Thetis, to petition Zeus to keep the Trojans killing the Greeks until this happens. Zeus agrees and the game is set. Many Greeks are killed, Achilles sulks in his tent, finally Achilles’ best friend Patroclus is killed and then at last Achilles rampages, slaughtering Trojans. Even the gods get into the battle, fighting one another until Zeus declares a stop to the chaos. The poem ends rather peacefully with two funerals, one for Hector, who killed Achilles’ friend Patroclus, and one for Patroclus. Soon Achilles will die; next year Troy will fall.

 

Clearly, Achilles and Agamemnon are not suitable role models for more civilized societies, and this became a problem for later generations. Even worse, stories of the gods quarreling and even engaging in wild battles, became unacceptable to more pious generations. And Homer’s vision of the relationship of mortals to gods is chilling—to Zeus, human beings are like the poppies of the field, they bloom briefly and die. The gods are rather like spectators betting on a violent football game that gets out of hand until Zeus finally calls an end to it. But Homer’s language, the power of the narrative, and Achilles’ heroic character are unforgettable, and have not only survived, but flourished, carrying memories of Troy into the twenty-first century.

 

Homer’s Greeks are winners; his Trojans, losers, yet the Trojans and Greeks share many traits, such as the love of warfare, excellence, gold, adventure, trade, women, and horses. In the Iliad, Trojans often seem more civilized than the Greeks. Priam is a better king and father than Agamemnon; Hector a kinder man than Achilles; Andromache a far better wife than Helen. Nonetheless, Homer’s Troy is not Greek. Priam is an oriental ruler who has fifty sons and twelve daughters, some by his wife, Hecuba, and many by his concubines in an oriental harem.

 

There is something exotic and decadent about Troy. The Trojans are not as politically astute, nor as aggressive, as the Greeks. Paris is a no-brain fop, but the Trojans allow him to act in ways that are disastrous for their city. Helen is pure trouble, yet the Trojans let her stay, even though her presence dooms them. Hector is the finest Trojan warrior, yet in his final test of will against Achilles, Hector breaks and tries to run away. Troy is rich, ancient, past its prime, even effete, an oriental kingdom to admire and plunder.

 

Even the gods have decided that Troy is ripe to fall. Zeus is ultimately on the side of the Greeks. Elsewhere in the Troy Cycle, there are stories of Priam’s father, King Laomedon, who was mean spirited and politically foolish. He tried to avoid paying his debt to the gods and refused hospitality to Jason and Hercules. Troy, for all its power and elegance, has smudges on its reputation. Excellence, and therefore victory, is clearly on the side of the Greeks.

 

However, the Trojans must display sufficient excellence to provide glory to their conquerors. And so they do. Indeed, they are good enough to inspire later civilizations to make them into their ancestral heroes. This is a wonderful irony of the Troy stories–the winners become transmuted into losers, the losers into winners, in the great culture wars of later civilizations.

The Story of the Troy Cycle by Diane Thompson, NVCC, ELI

 

There were two Trojan Wars: 1) when Laomedon was king of Troy, and 2) when his son Priam was king of Troy. The first occurred when Jason, Hercules and the Argonauts were seeking the Golden Fleece. They stopped off at Troy for rest and refueling, but King Laomedon refused them hospitality and forced them to leave. Some versions say that Laomedon tried to cheat Hercules out of promised pay for contracted heroic deeds. After successfully completing the Golden Fleece quest, Jason and Hercules gathered an army of Greeks, returned, and destroyed Troy to punish King Laomedon. Priam, Laomedon’s son, survived and rebuilt Troy.

 

The underlying cause of Homer’s Trojan War is told in the Cypria, of which only fragments remain. The burden of too many human beings disturbed the earth and Zeus conceived of the Trojan War to lower the population and relieve the earth. He did this by allowing Eris (Strife) to attend the wedding banquet of Peleus and Thetis, where Eris stirred up conflict between the goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite over who was the most beautiful.

 

The three goddesses asked Paris, a rather foolish, lady-loving son of King Priam of Troy, to judge which of them was the most beautiful. Each goddess offered her own special bribe. Paris chose Aphrodite’s bribe, possession of Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. Helen happened to be married to King Menelaus, one of the regional Greek kings, so Paris set off to Greece with a war party, seized her (perhaps with her cooperation), and brought her back to Troy, where they were married.

 

Menelaus then went to his brother Agamemnon, the High King of the Greeks, and asked for help retrieving his wife from Troy. Agamemnon assembled warriors and ships from all over Greece Divinely controlled unfavorable winds prevented the Greek fleet from sailing for Troy until Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia. The Greek army then besieged Troy for ten years.

 

During the ninth year of the siege, Achilles, the best of the Greek warriors, and Agamemnon quarreled bitterly over who got to keep Achilles’ woman war-prize, Briseis. Feeling shamefully dishonored, Achilles withdrew his men, the Myrmidons, from the fighting, resulting in the deaths of many Greeks, including Achilles’ dearest friend, Patroclus. Achilles and Agamemnon finally reconciled and Achilles reentered the battle, killing Hector, the greatest Trojan warrior, although Achilles knew that he himself would die shortly after Hector’s death. The story of Achilles’ wrath is told in Homer’s Iliad.

 

In the tenth year of the siege, the Trojans were deceived by the hollow Trojan Horse (its wooden belly full of soldiers) into letting Greeks inside their walls, and Troy fell. The city was burned, many Trojans slaughtered, and the women and children taken away as slaves.

 

The victorious Greeks began returning home, some quickly, some less so. Helen returned to Greece and resumed her marriage with Menelaus. We meet them living comfortably together when Odysseus’ son Telemachus visits their palace in the Odyssey. Agamemnon returned to his wife, Clytemnestra, who conspired with her lover, Aegisthus, to trap Agamemnon in a net and kill him. Odysseus was the last Greek warrior to return home from Troy. The Odyssey tells the story of his amazing voyage as well as his victory over the wicked suitors who were camped in his palace, devouring his supplies and intimidating his virtuous wife, Penelope.

 

There were also stories about Odysseus’ later adventures in the Telegonia, a sequel to the Odyssey composed by Eugammon of Cyrene in the sixth century BC. The Odyssey ends with the implication that Odysseus’ worst troubles are over; not so according to the Telegonia. Odysseus continues his infidelities and wanderings until Telegonus, his son by Circe, kills him.

 

The Story of the Odyssey, Briefly Retold by Diane Thompson, NVCC, ELI

 

Books 1-4: When Odysseus sailed for Troy, he left behind his clever wife Penelope and his infant son Telemachus. A few years before Odysseus returns, a large group of suitors try to force Penelope to marry one of them by moving into her palace for an endless party devouring the food and drink belonging to Odysseus.

 

Shortly before Odysseus returns, Athena, disguised as Mentor, shows up on Ithaka and arranges for Telemachus to travel to the mainland seeking word of his father Odysseus. Telemachus hears that Odysseus is alive, but stuck on Kalypso’s island. The suitors try to ambush and kill Telemachus as he returns to Ithaka, but Athena arranges for him to get home safely.

 

Books 5-8: Meanwhile, Athena has also arranged with Zeus to release Odysseus from Kalypso’s island and allow him to return home. Odysseus leaves the island on a raft, which Poseidon wrecks in a storm as a final act of vengeance because Odysseus blinded his son, the cyclops Polyphemos. Nearly dead with exhaustion, Odysseus washes up on Scheria, land of the Phaiakians, and collapses in a bed of leaves to sleep. In the morning he encounters the princess Nausicaa and her girl friends who (inspired by Athena) have come to the beach to wash their linen. Nausicaa tells Odysseus the way to her parents’ palace, where he is nobly hosted.

 

Books 9-12:  While feasting at the palace, Odysseus retells the stories of the fall of Troy and his amazing adventures since he left Troy. These are stories from the ancient oral tradition of sailors’ adventures to strange places, often beyond the boundaries of the real world.

Task 2. Read the Odyssey.

TASK 2.  Read the Odyssey at http://learner.org/courses/worldlit/odyssey/ (Links to an external site.)
). This is, by far, the longest reading assignment you will have for this course, but it is a delightful story. Just allow yourself plenty of time. If you find it unbearably long, you may select an activity below and then focus your reading on the section of the Odyssey that deals with that question.

Task 4. Greek Drama Study Guide.

WORLD LITERATURE I

TASK 4. Read through the Greek Drama Study Guide listed below in this document under the title, Task 4.  This will guide you as you select and read a Greek Drama. .

 

You may choose to watch the Greek Drama Video instead. It contains the same information. Home Page. http://learner.org/courses/worldlit/bacchae/ (Links to an external site.)

 

If you decide to read this play, here is a link to its text under the Read tab: http://learner.org/courses/worldlit/bacchae/ (Links to an external site.)

 

Task Four:  Greek Drama Study Guide

 

 

GREEK TRAGEDY

 

Greek theatre was something new in its time; it developed out of a mixture of ancient myths, stories and religious rituals, contemporary lyric poetry, the genius of a remarkably few men, and the Greek love of theatrical spectacle.

 

This theatre developed in some relation to the god Dionysus. Although scholars disagree about just how classical Greek theatre was involved with the religion of Dionysus, they generally agree that the early forms of Greek theatre stem from poems and dances performed for Dionysus, a rather disorderly god of mixed blessings.

 

Whether we see the fully matured Greek theatre as Dionysian or not, we can certainly look for and see the elements of Dionysus in Greek tragedy and comedy: insanity, violence, intoxication, wildness–these are properties of Dionysus as well as of the theatre that developed in Greece. And we do know that performances of dithyrambs (poems celebrating Dionysus), as well as satyr plays, tragedies and comedies, took place at the festivals of Dionysus in Athens.

 

DIONYSUS:

 

Definitions:

Dionysus         god of wine and madness

Dithyramb       (“twice-born”) – dance/poems in honor of Dionysus

Satyrs male worshippers of Dionysus – wore animal skins, horses tails and ears

Maenads          female worshippers of Dionysus – nursed infant male animals; also hunted and ate them raw

Goat  (“tragos”)          the sacred animal of Dionysus

 

Dionysus was “the god who gave man wine. However, he was known also as the raving god whose presence makes man mad and incites him to savagery and even to lust for blood…he was also the persecuted god, the suffering and dying god, and all whom he loved, all who attended him, had to share his tragic fate.” (W. Otto)

 

Dionysus had a difficult birth; he was snatched from his mother’s womb and secreted in the thigh of his father, Zeus, until he was ready to be born. Because of this, he was called “Dithyramb” or twice-born. His sacred animal was the goat whose Greek name, “tragos” is included in the word tragedy.

 

SATYRS AND MAENADS

 

The satyrs joined the maenads in wild dances in honor of Dionysus.

 

Many scholars, although not all, trace the development of tragedy back to such wild dance rituals worshipping the god Dionysus.

 

Bieber suggests that “The worshippers of Dionysus danced around the goat, singing the dithyramb; they then sacrificed it, devoured its flesh and made themselves a dress…out of its skin, or they threw it around their shoulders like the maenads. Then they felt themselves to be goats….the maenads and satyrs….were endowed with goat nature through a change of dress, by taking the goatskin as a costume.”

 

This ecstatic changing into someone else was supposedly the beginning of acting, of playing a character other than oneself.

 

Not everyone agrees with her and Brian Vickers thinks that whatever was Dionysian in early Greek theatre was gone by the classical period of the fifth century. He also comments that probably the “tragos” goat was the prize for the winning play, not the disguise of the dancers. Whatever the case, these elements were related in some way in the early development of Greek drama.

 

STEPS OF DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK DRAMA

1. Ecstatic dancing and singing in honor of Dionysus (men dressed as satyrs wearing animal skins, horse’s ears and tails and animal-like masks).

2. Satyr play–the leader of the chorus represented someone other than himself, usually a character from heroic saga, but still wore a satyr mask.

3. The leader of the satyr chorus wore the mask of a god or hero.

4. The leader of the satyr chorus was entirely separated from the chorus as an actor.

 

Following Bieber, The History of the Greek and Roman Theater

 

THE FIRST PLAYS

1. Thespis placed a separate actor opposite the leader of the chorus.

2. Spoken dialogue developed between this actor and the leader of the chorus.

3. The subject-matter was taken from heroic saga.

4. The chorus changed into various citizens of the heroic age according to the story of the play.

5. Thespis brought this form of drama, probably by wagon, to Athens in 534 B.C.

 

Following Bieber, The History of the Greek and Roman Theater

 

INNOVATIONS OF AESCHYLUS, SOPHOCLES AND EURIPIDES

Aeschylus       the second actor (more dialogue); 524-456 BC: a definite actor’s costume; large, dignified masks; magnificently decorated theater

Sophocles        the third actor (still more dialogue); 496-406 BC: scene painting

Euripides         a prologue explaining preceding events; 480-406 BC: the deus ex machina ending

 

Following Bieber, The History of the Greek and Roman Theater

 

The theatres themselves were out of doors, with seating built around the slopes surrounding a circular arena. Behind this arena was a skene or backdrop building, which gradually became more elaborate over the years.

 

A day of theatre would begin in the early morning and include a series of three tragedies, three separate comedies, and perhaps a satyr play.

 

TRAGEDY

 

Greek tragedies are intensely emotional and focus on the horror of murder and violent death, often within the family. The characters are noble, often kings and queens, not ordinary folk. The chorus, representing the society as onlookers, worries and bewails events, but is helpless in the face of the disasters befalling the main characters.

 

According to Aristotle, such intense emotions on stage make us experience pity and fear, and hence purge us of those emotions. This process of purgation is called catharsis.

 

There has been enormous controversy over the centuries as to exactly what Aristotle meant by this term, catharsis, but the only issue we need to think about in this context is: do we feel somehow calmer, if not wiser, after experiencing one of these tragedies? If so, that calmness may be called the effect of catharsis. Or does witnessing one of these tragedies in fact upset us and leave us in a more disturbed frame of mind than before we experienced it?

 

Today we ask whether or not violence in the media is making people more violent, or in fact allowing them to release their tensions vicariously, so that their actual daily lives are calmer. People seem to be inclining to the position that watching violence in fact makes people more violent.

 

However, it is important to recognize that while Greek drama dealt with emotional violence, it never showed physical violence on stage. Further, the violence it dealt with was witnessed by a sorrowing society in the form of the chorus, and the plays ended with some form of resolution.

 

These differences are worth thinking about when asking whether the emotional violence of Greek tragedy is in any way like the emotional and physical violence of modern film and television.

 

Greek tragedies are often family tragedies: Agamemnon, for example, harks back to the sacrifice of a child (Iphigenia), enacts the murder of a spouse (Agamemnon), and looks forward to the murder of a parent (Clytemnestra). This stress on violence within the family is typical of Greek tragedy and stems from the great importance of the family in Greek life. Brian Vickers points out that since “The Greek expected to live on not in an afterworld so much as in this world, in the memory and continuous homage of his descendants….the most serious crimes for the Greeks were those which struck against the very basis of family existence: parricide, matricide, all `shedding of kindred blood’, and incest” because such crimes interfered with the continuity of the family.(110-14)

 

GREEK TRAGEDIES AND TROY

 

After Homer, Greek attitudes towards the Trojan War and its heroes changed. The individualistic behavior and violence of Homeric heroes such as Achilles and Odysseus became less acceptable in civilized fifth century Athens. The wild violence of heroic age women such as Clytemnestra, already a problem in Homer, became even more unacceptable. Yet, the stories remained popular. A number of plays surviving from fifth century Athens are based on Trojan War material. They include:

Aeschylus       Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides

Sophocles        Ajax, Electra, Philoctetes

Euripides         Hecuba, Andromache, The Trojan Women, Iphigenia in Tauris, Helen, Electra, Orestes, Iphigenia at Aulis

 

Most of these plays are concerned with events before and after the war, rather than with the war itself, and a surprising number center on women, many suffering, some evil, rather than on the ancient heroes.

 

Greek legends about the heroes and heroines of the Trojan Cycle were plentiful and varied; different stories about the same event or character might even contradict one another, especially in the details. For example, in one version of the legend of Iphigenia, she is sacrificed by her father Agamemnon at Aulis so that Artemis will allow favorable winds for the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. This sacrifice is used in the Agamemnon as a motive for Clytemnestra’s murder of her husband.

 

In an alternate version of the legend, Iphigenia is saved at the moment of sacrifice by Artemis, who snatches Iphigenia away to Tauris and replaces her on the altar with a sacrificial deer. Euripides wrote two melodramatic plays about this happier variant, Iphigenia at Aulis and Iphigenia in Tauris. Consequently, although the stories used for Greek dramas were often based on stories about the Trojan War, the treatment of the stories was up to the individual dramatist. The legends of Troy were there for the taking, available to be made into plays that met the needs and interests of Athen’s rapidly changing civilization.

 

THE ORESTEIA

 

The Oresteia by Aeschylus consists of three plays:

Agamemnon   Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus, kill Agamemnon when he returns home from the Trojan War.

The Libation Bearers Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, kills Clytemnestra, his own mother, to avenge her murder of Agamemnon.

The Avenging Furies OR Kindly Spirits        Orestes now must deal with the consequences of his murder of his mother and, with divine help, appease the furies who exact vengeance for matricide.

 

THE CHARACTERS OF THE ORESTEIA

Agamemnon   King of Mycenae; husband of Clytemnestra; father of Electra, Iphigenia and Orestes; sacrificed Iphigenia; murdered by Clytemnestra

Aegisthus        lover of Clytemnestra; cousin of Agamemnon

Apollo             god of purification

Athena            patron of Athens; established Court of Aeropagus which voted to set Orestes free from blood guilt for killing his mother

Cassandra        daughter of Priam; war-prize of Agamemnon; speaks truth and is not believed; murdered by Clytemnestra

Clytemnestra   wife of Agamemnon; sister of Helen; mother of Electra, Iphigenia and Orestes; lover of Aegisthus; murders Agamemnon and Cassandra

Furies ancient demonic goddesses that uphold blood rights, especially those of motherhood

Iphigenia         daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra; sacrificed by Agamemnon to receive favorable winds to sail to Troy

Orestes            son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra; brother of Iphigenia; murders Clytemnestra; driven mad by Furies; cleansed by Apollo; set free by Court of Aeropagus

 

THE STORY OF THE ORESTEIA

 

The Oresteia tells the story of the resolution of an ancient myth-family tragedy, the blood guilt of the House of Atreus. This conflict started with the two sons of Pelops, Atreus and Thyestes, quarreling over the kingship of Mycenae. Atreus became king and banished his brother Thyestes. However, when Atreus discovered that Thyestes had secretly committed adultery with Atreus’ wife Aerope, he hid his rage, inviting Thyestes to return home for a banquet. Atreus murdered two of Thyestes’ children and then served their bodies as meat to Thyestes at the banquet. After Thyestes had eaten, Atreus displayed their bloody heads, hands and feet on another dish. Thyestes vomited and cursed the seed of Atreus. Agamemnon and Menelaus are the sons of Atreus.

 

The curse worked itself out through:

 

    Agamemnon, who sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia

    Clytemnestra, who murdered her husband Agamemnon

    Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, who murdered his mother, Clytemnestra.

 

The Furies pursue and torment Orestes because he avenged one crime with another more forbidden crime. The Furies are the mythic enforcerers of ancient blood vengeance law, for whom the greatest crime is matricide, since the closest blood tie was between mother and child.

 

Orestes, seeking purification from his guilt, petitions Apollo, who advises Orestes to seek help from Athena. She sympathizes with Orestes, because she was not born of a woman herself, but sprang from her father Zeus’ head. Athena arranges a trial, using Athenian citizens as jurors to weigh the claims of mother blood guilt versus Clytemnestra’s crime killing her husband. The Furies agree to abide by the decision of the jury. They put forth their claims of the primary right of the mother.

 

However, Apollo asserts that the mother is simply a passive vessel, so that the child is really connected by blood to the father alone. This would mean that matricide is not a blood guilt crime at all! His arguments only persuade half the jury, which gives a tie vote. However, the tie frees Orestes, ending his blood guilt. Athena then placates the Furies, persuading them to become the Kindly Ladies, benevolent powerful spirits of the city of Athens, tucked underground, safely out of sight.

 

AGAMEMNON

 

Early Greek tragedy can be difficult for a modern audience to appreciate. Practically nothing happens in Agamemnon except an offstage murder of a man we have just met by a woman we don’t like.

 

Because Greek dramas developed originally out of the lyric satyr choruses, they have large sections of lyric poetry (the choruses) interspersed with sections of dialogue. Agamemnon’s lyric sections are especially long. They are supposed to be especially beautiful in the original Greek; unfortunately, the translations I’ve read have not been particularly attractive. Frankly, as a modern reader, I wish the choruses of this play were shorter and the dialogue longer. If you have a chance to see a film or play of Agamemnon, do so; It can be more accessible with real actors than as a text.

 

THE STORY OF AGAMEMNON

 

Agamemnon is the first of three plays which display the unending and terrible consequences of a private blood feud which continues from one generation to the next until it is finally stopped by instituting a public legal process to replace private revenge.

 

Agamemnon focuses on Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon. She wants vengeance because Agamemnon sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia at Aulis ten years earlier in order to placate the goddess Artemis. This goddess had been sending contrary winds to prevent the Greek Armies from sailing to Troy. It is easy for us to be horrified at what Agamemnon did and want to excuse Clytemnestra, but the play offers no excuses for her–she is presented as thoroughly dislikeable, wicked, and dangerous.

 

The play starts at night with a watchman awaiting a fire signal passed from hill top to hill top to indicate that the Trojan War has ended. Clytemnestra has arranged for these fires which cross many miles between Troy and Greece. She is a clever woman as well as a dangerous one, and even worse, she has the heart of a man in her woman’s breast, as the watchman tells us at the very start.

 

There is not much action in Agamemnon; the first half of the play is spent anxiously awaiting the arrival of Agamemnon. Here, the real action begins, centered on an argument between Agamemnon and his wife Clytemnestra which displays Agamemnon’s conceited pride and Clytemnestra’s treachery. She wants him to walk into the palace on a valuable blood-red tapestry; he objects that this would be an act of excessive pride. Their argument, which is the only time we see them together in the play, reveals each of their characters.

 

Philip Harsh remarks that “the essential weakness of [Agamemnon’s]…character is only too apparent in this clash with the strong-willed Clytemnestra…. In attempting to make Agamemnon accept her base flattery and walk upon the blood-red tapestry, Clytemnestra is attempting to cause him to commit an act of insolence …which will evoke the disgust and hatred of men and the vengeance of the gods.” (69)

 

Agamemnon surrenders to his wife and, walking on the blood-red tapestry, enters the palace, shortly to die. Now the most intense scene of the play occurs, the raving prophecy of the prophetess Cassandra outside the palace, predicting murder most foul, while Clytemnestra, with help from her lover Aegisthus prepares to murder Agamemnon within. Agamemnon’s death cries follow and the play is essentially over. Agamemnon has been murdered, but there will be more murder to avenge his death. Murder is not able to solve the problems of this cursed household; indeed that is the whole point of the trilogy. Murder only begets murder; setting up a court of law is the only way to stop the series of bloody feuds. This is a message about the need for civilization, but it is not yet made in Agamemnon, so we are left with only darkness and death. For this reason, the three plays of this trilogy should be read as a set; Agamemnon is really only the first act of a three act play.

 

OEDIPUS REX

 

Modern audiences appreciate this play, but the more we think about it, the more troublesome it becomes. Oedipus Rex is difficult for us to cope with, because we believe so deeply today in the idea of freewill and the potential for both human and divine justice. But these concepts are not particularly relevant to Sophocles’ play about a man who was born fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Everything that matters has already happened before the play begins.

 

THE STORY OF OEDIPUS REX

 

Before Oedipus was even conceived, the oracle of Apollo prophesied that Oedipus would kill his father Laius and marry his mother Jocasta, who were the king and queen of Thebes.

 

This dire warning led Jocasta to give the infant Oedipus to a shepherd to expose to wild animals in the hills. The shepherd felt pity and gave the infant to another shepherd who took him to a distant city where Oedipus was adopted by the childless king and queen and raised as their son.

 

Growing to adulthood, Oedipus heard a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, he left the city to prevent these awful events from occurring.

 

On his travels, he met a carriage and several men at a crossroad. The man in charge was rude and threatening and Oedipus killed him, not knowing the man was his real father, Laius.

 

Oedipus then encountered the Sphinx and answered her riddle; this won him the reward of marrying Jocasta, Queen of Thebes.

 

The play opens many years after these events. Thebes is being devastated by plague, sent by Apollo because there is pollution in the city. King Oedipus is determined to find out the source of the pollution and drive it out of the city in order to stop the plague. The play focuses on Oedipus’ urgent drive to know the truth. Being an impetuous man as well as a powerful king, Oedipus is rude and hostile toward anyone who seems to interfere with his search, especially the seer Tiresias who knows the truth but does not want to tell it to Oedipus.

 

The terrible irony of this play is that Oedipus himself turns out to be the source of pollution, the cause of the plague, the murderer of his father and the husband of his mother. He finally discovers the truth, and knowing it destroys his life as king of Thebes.

 

Oedipus responds to this terrible knowledge by blinding himself and at the end of the play he is prepared to leave Thebes and wander in the wilderness, knowing himself and knowing that his entire life was spent fulfilling his fated destiny.

 

IS OEDIPUS GUILTY?

 

We must be careful not to blame Oedipus for what he did, nor to think of his final exile as punishment. As Rohde points out, the stain of pollution “is not `within the heart of man’. It clings to a man as something hostile, and from without, and that can be spread from him to others like an infectious disease. Hence, the purification is effected by religious processes directed to the external removal of the evil thing.” Oedipus must leave Thebes, but that does not mean he is guilty, merely that he is polluted and a source of disease for the city.

 

Pollution is a fascinating index of a true difference between our contemporary culture and that of classical Greece. Our system of morality and justice is based firmly on the idea that each sane person is or can be responsible for his or her own actions, and that those actions can be “paid” for. E.g., a robber can pay for his crime by going to jail. We simply cannot accept the notion that a person could carry a moral disease like a virus without being personally responsible for it, and that this moral disease could sicken others just as physical viruses carry the flu from one “innocent” person to the next. The only exception we generally make is for insanity, which is why some people tried for crimes plead “insanity” to explain that they were NOT responsible. However, Oedipus is absolutely sane; there is no question here of insanity. It is useful to notice where other times and places are genuinely different from ours and pollution is a good example of such a genuine difference.

 

MEDEA

 

Medea is a revenge tragedy about a woman who murders her own children to punish her ex-husband. This is a difficult situation for us to identify with, yet Medea is an easy play to read and relate to because of the powerful psychological presentation of the mad, murderous, yet grieving mother.

 

Medea is a powerful, dangerous witch. After committing various criminal acts including several murders to help her lover, Jason, Medea has fled into exile with him to Corinth. Here Jason deserts her and marries the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth.

 

THE STORY OF MEDEA

 

The actual play starts at this time. It begins with the Nurse worried about Medea’s children; she evidently knows Medea well and fears for their lives. Creon, the King of Corinth and father of Jason’s new bride intends to drive Medea and her children by Jason out of the city into exile. Medea pleads with Creon for one day’s time before she leaves.

 

Next comes a really disgusting scene in which Jason, an unbelievably smooth and egotistical rat, says that if Medea had only behaved nicely, she could have stayed in Corinth. He further claims to have married the princess in order to consolidate the position of his and Medea’s children. Medea doesn’t buy that lame excuse.

 

Medea schemes to prepare her revenge on Jason. First, she arranges for her own safety by promising the childless King Aegeus of Athens that if he gives her refuge she will enable him to have children.

 

Next, Medea sends her own children to Jason’s new bride, carrying rich gifts of a robe and tiara, supposedly to soften the princess’ heart so that she and her father will let Medea’s children stay in Corinth, even though Medea must leave. But the gifts are in fact poisoned, and when the princess puts them on, not only does she die, but her father embraces her and he too dies from the poison.

 

Finally, Medea leaves Corinth in a dragon wagon, taking the bodies of the two dead children so that Jason won’t even have the satisfaction of burying them. Not only is this her ultimate touch of revenge, but it is a good example of a deus ex machina ending. Medea’s actions had made so much trouble that there was no way she could escape by natural means, so Euripides provided her a wagon pulled by a dragon.

 

Euripides makes Medea strangely sympathetic in her murderous sufferings. She loves her children and yet she is finally willing to kill them in order to complete her total revenge against their father.

 

The most disturbing aspect of this play to modern readers is that Medea gets away with murdering her own children as well as Jason’s new wife and her father. This was certainly disturbing to  playgoers of Euripides’ time, too, but they would have been more able to understand the outcome, because Medea was related to the sun god and such creatures did not have to operate strictly in terms of human morality. Niobe is an example of what the Greek gods did to human beings when offended. Niobe was a proud mother of many children and she bragged that she had more children than the goddess Leto, whose only two children were Apollo and Artemis. Leto was offended. To soothe their mother, Apollo and Artemis killed all of Niobe’s children.

 

Morality is for human beings; the gods are always potentially dangerous to impious, unwary, and even totally innocent humans (e.g. the unborn Oedipus). Although the gods, at times, seem to have ideas of right and wrong, these ideas may be quite different from human ideas of right and wrong.

 

OLD COMEDY

 

Old Comedy was the form of comedy written and presented in the fifth century B.C. in Greece. It is quite different from later kinds of Greek Comedy.

 

STRUCTURE OF OLD COMEDY

1. Main character conceives an absurd happy idea (e.g. no sex in Lysistrata)

2. Violent opposition to happy idea

3. Happy idea conquers opposition in a debate

4. Test of happy idea in practice

5. A series of scenes between the main character and various figures who have been affected

6. A satisfactory climax including a party

 

Following Harsh, A Handbook of Classical Drama, 258-259

 

LYSISTRATA

 

Lysistrata is set in contemporary Athens during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. This war eventually destroyed the Athenian democracy. The title character, Lysistrata reveals her happy idea of a sex strike to force the men to stop fighting and make peace. She convinces the other women that this is a good idea and the women seize the Acropolis, where the money for the war effort was kept.

 

Then two half-choruses enter, one of old women and one of old men. Their clash represents the dramatic clash of the entire play.

 

Next, the Magistrate tries to get the women to behave. He is a typical pompous Athenian male. After he is thoroughly humiliated, Lysistrata chastises the Athenians for their destructive warlike behavior which is destroying both Athens and Sparta. Then the two choruses clash again providing low comic contrast to Lysistrata’s serious advice.

 

A few days pass and then Lysistrata announces that the women are undermining her revolt. The two half-choruses express their hatred of one another. The men are getting pretty horny by now, and we have the wonderful scene of Cinesias begging his wife Myrrhina for sex, while she teases and refuses him and he finally leaves.

 

The Spartan Herald arrives and announces that the Spartan men are in the same fix as the Athenian men, and finally a meeting and truce is arranged. Lysistrata makes a moving appeal for pan-hellenism, reminding each side of the debt they owe to the other. Naturally, all ends with a banquet, singing and dancing.

 

INTERESTING ISSUES: THREATENING WOMEN:

 

Lysistrata: organizes a revolt of women against men

Clytemnestra: takes a lover while her husband is at Troy; murders her husband when he returns home

 

Medea: a witch; murders many people, including her own children; gets away with it all

Jocasta: tries to have her infant son killed; marries her unrecognized adult son; kills herself

 

The plays Lysistrata and Agamemnon both make much of role reversal: in both plays women seizing power act as men. In the case of Lysistrata, it is all very amusing, but in the case of Clytemnestra it is the deadliest of dangers, as we saw earlier in the Odyssey, where Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon was a constant warning to Odysseus of what can happen to a homecoming soldier if he can’t trust his wife.

 

The actual role of women in classical Greece was extremely limited, especially in Athens where women were not even allowed out of the house to go marketing. They were tightly controlled to insure that the male head of the family had male heirs which were truly his own. Beyond this, women were not much valued. Certainly they did not behave like the women in these plays. It is fascinating to wonder why a culture that so-controlled its women would write plays about such powerful and disturbing women…was it memories of being an infant dependent upon a woman, or was it memories of an earlier time when women had had a more active role in the society?

 

At any rate, Medea is a powerful, dangerous witch woman. And one cannot feel good about Jocasta although her troubles were largely beyond her control. One gets the feeling that classical Greek playwrights were not comfortable with powerful women. None of these women are in any way normal, and are as much monsters as female in the way they are presented. Lysistrata is an amusing monster; Jocasta a disturbing one; Clytemnestra and Medea intensely dangerous.

 

INTERESTING ISSUES: FREEWILL IN OEDIPUS REX

 

This play is wonderfully controversial. Oedipus Rex is probably the single best document we have for thinking and arguing about ideas of fate and freedom in classical Greece. I have selected just a few comments by contemporary scholars to give a sense of the ideas this play stirs up.

 

“There is no suggestion in the Oedipus Rex that Laius sinned or that Oedipus was the victim of an hereditary curse, and the critic must not assume what the poet has abstained from suggesting….we think of two clear-cut alternative views–either we believe in free will or else we are determinists. But fifth-century Greeks did not think in these terms….” (Dodds 40)

 

“From Homer to Aristotle both poets and philosophers tended to ask not `was he free?’ as we might do, but `is he responsible …?’…the ancient question, is answered in the affirmative if it can be shown that the men involved acted according to their characters…” (Gould 52)

 

“Sophocles has provided a conclusive answer to those who suggest that Oedipus could, and therefore should, have avoided his fate. The oracle was unconditional (l. 790): it did not say “If you do so-and-so you will kill your father”; it simply said “You will kill your father, you will sleep with your mother.” And what an oracle predicts is bound to happen.” (Dodds 39)

 

Oedipus’ “lack of freedom in the past needs to be emphasized since it is the assurance of his innocence in the present. Had he had the faintest suspicion of his true identity and relationship to Laius and Jocasta then he would indeed be an `inhuman monster'”. (Vickers 499)

 

INTERESTING ISSUES: KINGS AND HEROES

 

        Agamemnon in Agamemnon

 

        Oedipus in Oedipus Rex

 

        Jason in Medea

 

Greek kings were pretty arrogant by modern standards and this was ok under most circumstances. Be careful not to impose our ideas of a nice guy on them. However, Agamemnon was perhaps a little too haughty for his own good, and gets in trouble in the Iliad because of his hot temper and pride which incite him to quarrel with Achilles. This pride is important in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon too. As Philip Harsh points out:

 

    “The pride of Agamemnon…is…spectacularly symbolized by Agamemnon’s triumphant entrance in his chariot with followers and fanfare. He is …too proud of his utter destruction of Troy. His conceit entirely prevents him from properly understanding the veiled warnings of the chorus. From his haughty and contemptuous response to Clytemnestra’s hypocrisy, it is obvious that he despises her; but…he pathetically underestimates his adversary. ” (69)

 

Oedipus too is arrogant, but there is no doubt in the play that he has been a good king and is sincere in his attempts to root out the source of plague that is harming his country. And once Oedipus discovers the terrible truth about his life, his arrogance totally disappears. It would be interesting to compare the characters of Oedipus and Agamemnon to distinguish between two kinds of kingly pride, one excessive even in fifth century Greece.

 

As for Jason, he is a self-seeking, egocentric rat and deserves to die, but of course it is not Jason, but his children, who are killed. His smarmy speeches to Medea explaining why he “had” to marry the king’s daughter to protect his and Medea’s children are masterpieces of disgusting rationalization that would be perfectly at home in a modern context. Jason could be a villain on a daytime TV show.

 

INTERESTING ISSUES: FOREIGNERS AND MONSTERS

 

        Cassandra

 

        Medea

 

        Oedipus

 

        Tiresias

 

Cassandra and Medea are both female, foreign, monstrous, and closely connected to things sacred. Cassandra has troubles because she deceived Apollo; her punishment is to prophesy truly while no one believes her, which she does while Agamemnon is about to be murdered. She uses her supernatural gift “to draw again and again the connection between crime and retribution, linking past, present and future in the house of Atreus.” (Vickers 374) The chorus just listens to her and goes oh woe and such but nobody takes a step to help Agamemnon or to keep Cassandra from going into the palace to be herself murdered.

 

Medea, on the other hand, gets away with everything, because she is descended from the sun god. Indeed, “one of the chief difficulties which Euripides faced in writing this play was in the humanization of Medea, for the Medea of popular legend was both the most famous witch of antiquity and the cold perpetrator of barbaric murders.” (Harsh 177) For all this, Euripides transforms the mythical witch into a passionate woman who can weep bitterly while she murders her own children.

 

Oedipus is also foreign and monstrous. He becomes a sacred monster, especially after he blinds himself and prepares to leave the city as a wanderer. In a later play by Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, we are told that Oedipus’ final death was a sacred event bringing blessings on the place where he died.

 

Tiresias is an interesting character; he is the seer who gives Odysseus good advice in the underworld about how to get home safely. Tiresias lived part of his life as a man; part as a woman. He was ancient, wise, a sacred monster. In Oedipus Rex, Tiresias is still alive, blind, yet able to see the truth, something Oedipus cannot do until after he loses his physical eyes. Much of the irony of the play lies in the contrast between the physically blind who can see and the mentally blind who cannot see even though their eyes function perfectly.

 

Indeed, the development of Greek drama out of the rituals of Dionysus suggests much of the foreign and monstrous inherent in the very fabric of the early dramatic ritual. Dionysus was known as the god who came from elsewhere, forcing his way into Greece, overcoming resistance, driving people mad who refused to worship him. This is described at length in The Bacchae by Euripides. Dionysus’ powerful ritual mixture of ecstasy and suffering, dance, song, wine and death, is eminently suitable for the god of Greek tragedy, a theatre of intense, complex emotion, great suffering and final calm.

 

WORKS CITED

 

Margarete Bieber. The History of the Greek and Roman Theater.

 

E.R. Dodds. “On Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex.” In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. Ed. by Harold Bloom.

 

Thomas Gould. “The Innocence of Oedipus: The Philosophers on Oedipus the King.” In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. Ed. by Harold Bloom.

 

Philip Whaley Harsh. A Handbook of Classical Drama.

 

Walter F. Otto. Dionysus: Myth and Cult.

 

Erwin Rohde. Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks.

 

Brian Vickers. Towards Greek Tragedy: Drama, Myth, Society.

Task 5. Select and read a Greek Drama.

To-do date: 28 Feb at 23:59

TASK 5. Select and read ONE of the Greek Dramas listed below: 

1) Agamemnon by Aeschylus

2) Oedipus the King by Sophocles

3) Antigone by Sophocles

4) Medea by Euripedes

5) Lysistrata by Aristophanes.

Option: You may access free etexts of these epics: Agamemnon, Oedipus the King, Antigone, and Medea at The Internet Classics Archive:

http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/index.html (Links to an external site.)

You will have to select the name of the author, choose the play title, and then the script will come up.

 

Lysistrata by Aristophanes will be found at the Gutenberg Press: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7700/7700-h/7700-h.htm (Links to an external site.)
.

Task 7. Virgil Study Guide.

To-do date: 21 Feb at 23:59

TASK 7. Read through the Virgil’s Aeneid Study Guide located below in this document under the title Task 7. This will give you background information on Virgil’s Roman civilization and his epic poetry.

You may choose to watch the Virgil’s Aeneid Video instead. It contains the same information.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EoMREfwe9k (Links to an external site.)

WORLD LITERATURE I

 

Virgil Study Guide (Task Seven)

 

http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/eng251/virgilstudy.html (Links to an external site.)

(Course created by Dr.  Diane Thompson, NVCC, ELI)

 

VIRGIL’S LIFE — (70-19 BC) — A First Century Roman Citizen

 

Not much is known about Virgil’s life. He was born in 70 BC and raised in a rural area near Mantua, Italy; he was well educated; his family farm was seized as a political spoil. From his thirty-first year on, Virgil lived either in Rome or near Naples, associated with his patron, Maecenas, Octavian’s minister of internal affairs. Virgil was a court poet, whose well-being depended on pleasing powerful members of the ruling class. He evidently did this quite well, since Maecenas and other wealthy patrons supported him financially, allowing him to spend his life writing poetry.

 

VIRGIL’S LATIN

 

A brief example of Virgil’s Latin from the opening sentence of the Aeneid shows how the words are arranged more like a mosaic than in the linear fashion we are used to nowadays:

 

    Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris

 

    ARMS THE MAN AND I SING, OF TROY WHO FIRST FROM COASTS

 

    Italiam fato profugus Laviniaque venit

 

    TO ITALY BY FATE EXILED LAVINIAN AND CAME

 

    litora

 

    SHORES

 

Or, in normal English word order:

 

    Arms I sing and the man who first from the coasts of Troy, exiled by fate, came to Italy and Lavinian shores.

 

In the Latin original, each word has a meaning that may not become clear until several more words have been read. This is an elegant, complex, literary language that does not end itself to translation.

 

The Main Characters in the Aeneid are grouped below into five categories: Roman Deities; Greeks; Trojans; Tyrians; and Others

ROMAN DEITIES IN THE AENEID (and their Greek parallels, if any)

Allecto            a Fury who instills the poison of irrational rage into her victims, especially Amata and Turnus

Apollo             (same name in Greek) sun god; son of Jupiter and Latona; the god of prophecy; brother of Diana

Cupid (Eros) son of Venus

Diana (Artemis) goddess of the moon, the hunt and the woods; daughter of Jupiter and Latona; sister of Apollo

Iris       rainbow goddess; Juno’s messenger

Juno    (Hera) wife and sister of Jupiter; daughter of Saturn; god of marriage; chief goddess of Carthage; hates Trojans because of Judgment of Paris

Jupiter (Zeus) chief deity; husband and brother of Juno; son of Saturn

Lares   household, hearth-centered, ancestral gods, which Aeneas brings along with the Penates from Troy to Italy; these, along with the Penates, are small enough for Anchises to carry while Aeneas carries him

Penates            household gods or gods of the state; Aeneas brings the Trojan state gods with him from Troy to Italy

Mars    (Ares) god of war; son of Jupiter

Mercury          (Hermes) messenger

Minerva          (Athena)-goddess of wisdom, battle and household arts such as weaving

Neptune          (Poseidon) god of the sea; brother of Jupiter; helped build the walls of Troy, but King Laomedon, Priam’s father, refused to pay him, so he became an enemy of Troy

Saturn (Chronos) previous chief god; father of Jupiter, who deposed him

Venus (Aphrodite) mother of Aeneas and of Cupid; goddess of love; she constantly worries about her son Aeneas, despite Jupiter’s assurances that he will be fine

Vulcan            (Hephaestus) husband of Venus, god of the forge and fire

 

GREEK CHARACTERS IN THE AENEID: (few and nasty)

Pyrrhus            son of Achilles, also named Neoptolemus; during the destruction of Troy, he killed a son of Priam and Hecuba in front of their eyes, and then killed Priam at his own altar; he also captured their daughter Andromache, Hector’s widow, as his concubine

Sinon   a deceitful Greek who pretended to flee from the Greeks to the Trojans, told lying tales about the Trojan Horse and how, if it were taken into Troy, Troy could not be taken; he then released the soldiers from inside the Trojan Horse to destroy Troy

Ulysses            (Odysseus)- the treacherous fellow who devised the Trojan Horse that destroyed Troy; a brilliant, cruel, self-seeking manipulator

 

TROJAN CHARACTERS IN THE AENEID:

Aeneas            Trojan prince, son of Venus and Anchises, father of Ascanius, lover of Dido, ancestor of the Roman people

Anchises         Aeneas’ father; carried by Aeneas from fallen Troy

Andromache   widow of Hector, captured at fall of Troy by Pyrrhus; eventually married Helenus

Ascanius         (also Iulus) son of Aeneas and Creusa

Camilla           female warrior, ally of Turnus in Latium

Creusa             Aeneas’ wife who dies during the flight out of Troy

Euryalus          Trojan warrior; friend of Nisus; killed during a brave sortie with Nisus after killing many Latin enemies; Nisus and Euryalus became a model of loyal, brave friendship

Hecuba            queen of Troy, wife of Priam

Helenus           a son of Priam; a prophet; eventually married the widowed Andromache and became king in Epirus

Laocoon          Trojan priest; tried to warn the Trojans about the Trojan horse by thrusting a spear against it; killed by serpents

Nisus   Trojan warrior; friend of Euryalus; killed during a brave sortie with Euryalus after killing many Latin enemies

Priam king of Troy; killed by Pyrrhus

Polydorus        Trojan who was treacherously killed by the king of Thrace; buried under a bush which bled when Aeneas tried to tear off a branch; his ghost warns Aeneas to flee from Thrace

 

TYRIAN CHARACTERS IN THE AENEID:

Anna   Dido’s sister; encouraged Dido in her affair with Aeneas

Dido    queen and founder of Carthage, widow of Sychaeus; falls in love with Aeneas; kills herself when he leaves; also called Elissa

Sychaeus         Dido’s dead first husband; they are reunited in the Underworld

 

OTHER CHARACTERS IN THE AENEID ( in Italy):

Amata queen of Latium; wife of Latinus; mother of Lavinia; wanted Turnus to marry Lavinia

Evander           a good Greek; Aeneas’ ally; founder of Pallanteum; father of Pallas

Latinus            king of Latium, husband of Amata, father of Lavinia

Lavinia            daughter of Amata and Latinus; loved by Turnus; destined to be Aeneas’ wife to join the two warring peoples (Trojans and Latins) in peace

Pallas young warrior, son of Evander, ally of Aeneas, killed by Turnus

Sibyl    Apollo’s priestess; guides Aeneas into the Underworld where he meets his dead father and learns the future of the Roman race

Turnus             king of the Rutulians; heads opposition to Aeneas in Italy; wants to marry Lavinia; kills Pallas; killed by Aeneas

 

THE STORY

 

Virgil deliberately patterned the Aeneid on the Odyssey and the Iliad. The first half of the Aeneid (books 1-6) adapts the plot of the Odyssey: the fall of Troy, hostile gods, lengthy wandering, woman troubles, the underworld, seeking home. The second half (books 7-12) mirrors the wrath and warfare of the Iliad.

 

    Book 1: Aeneas, a prince of Troy is struggling to find his ancestral homeland, but Juno opposes him. She hates the Trojans because of the Judgment of Paris, which insulted her beauty, the theft of Helen, which violated Juno’s position as the goddess of marriage, and the future fall of Carthage, her favorite city. After seven years of confused wandering, Aeneas has gotten near his goal of Italy, but Juno interferes. She arranges for a storm to drive him toward North Africa and Carthage. Dido, founder and queen of Carthage welcomes Aeneas and his companions. Although Jupiter assures Venus that her son Aeneas will prevail and found the Latin race in Italy, Venus is a worrier, so she sends Cupid to poison Dido with love for Aeneas, so she will not harm him.

 

    Book 2: Dido is gracious to Aeneas and his companions and interested in the story of the fall of Troy. Aeneas tells her how the Greeks created the deception of the Trojan Horse and how the gods confused the Trojans when a priest, Laocoon, struck the Trojan Horse with his staff and was promptly devoured by serpents. A treacherous Greek, Sinon, released the Greeks from the Horse, now inside the city of Troy, and the slaughter began. Aeneas relates the final battle, and his furious fighting until his mother Venus revealed to him that the gods themselves were destroying Troy and instructed him to leave Troy with his father (Anchises), son (Ascanius) and the household gods of his family and of Troy. While fleeing Troy, Creusa, Aeneas’ wife was parted from them and killed.

 

    Book 3: Aeneas tells Dido how his band of Trojans searched for a new Troy. First they went to Thrace where they encountered the Trojan Polydorus in the form of a bleeding bush that warns them of treachery. They perform funeral rites for Polydorus and quickly leave Thrace. Next they travel to an island where a prophetic voice advises them to “seek out your ancient mother.” However, they don’t know for sure where that is. Anchises thinks it’s Crete, where they try to found a city, but soon they start dying of pestilence.

 

    The household gods appear to Aeneas to tell him that Italy is their true ancient mother. Then they encounter the horrid Harpies in the Strophades. Caelano, a Harpy prophetess of sorts, warns them that when they get to Italy, they’ll be so hungry they’ll eat their plates. Next they land at Actium in N.W. Greece, where they hold Trojan Games. After this, they sail to Buthrotrum, where the Trojan Helenus, Apollo’s priest, directs them to Italy, but first Aeneas must go to the Cumaean Sybil and the Underworld. They safely pass through the Sicilian Ulyssesland: Cyclop’s island, Skylla and Charybdis. But before they can reach their goal of Italy, Anchises dies and then the storm, concocted by Juno, drives them to Africa. So here they are in Carthage.

 

    Book 4: The Dido Affair. Dido had been married to a Tyrian, Sychaeus, who was treacherously killed by her brother. Dido fled Tyre with a band of followers and came to North Africa, where she acquired land to found the city of Carthage. Poisoned by Cupid, Dido fell madly in love with Aeneas, which conflicted with her vow to her dead husband Sychaeus to remain faithful to him. Juno and Venus cooperate, each thinking to further her own cause. Juno wants to keep Aeneas from founding Rome, which will eventually conquer Carthage; Venus wants to keep her son safe from Dido’s potential treachery. So, Juno and Venus set up the “marriage.” Dido and Aeneas are out hunting, there is a storm, they seek refuge in a cave. Here they mate, while Juno sets off lightning and nymphs cry out. Dido calls it marriage; Aeneas does not.

 

    The lovers are negligent of their duties; Dido ceases working on her city; Aeneas forgets his destiny. Finally, Jupiter sends Mercury to chide Aeneas about his neglected duty to his son and their future descendants in Italy. Immediately dutiful to the will of the gods and Destiny, Aeneas secretly arranges his departure. When Dido discovers that he is leaving, she begs him to stay. He cannot, will not, so she raves and rages, curses the Trojans and kills herself on a pyre heaped with Aeneas’ belongings and items of witchcraft. Meanwhile, Aeneas and the other Trojans are in their boats sailing away.

 

    Book 5: This book is the prelude to the world of the dead. First, Aeneas goes back to Sicily where he arranges Memorial Games for Anchises, who has been dead for a year. Here, Aeneas displays his skills as a leader, carrying out rituals, presiding at the games, encouraging his men, restraining anger, preventing injuries. Meanwhile, Juno has been biding her time. She sends her messenger, Iris, to inflame the Trojan women with fury, encouraging them to burn the Trojan ships so they will not have to travel any further. A torrential rain saves all but four of the ships. Aeneas leaves the reluctant behind; the remaining Trojans continue on toward Italy and the underworld

 

    Book 6: The Cumaean Sibyl gives prophecies about Aeneas’ future in Italy and leads Aeneas into the underworld. Unlike Homer’s dim and wretched Hades, Virgil’s Hades is a place of remediation and rebirth, where the lifetime deeds of the dead are examined and judged. They are chastised, as need be, punished and purged until they are purified. Then these cleansed souls can wander happily in Elysium, the groves of blessedness, until after a thousand years it is time to be reborn. Aeneas meets the shade of his father Anchises in Elysium, where Anchises tells him about the World Soul and rebirth, and shows Aeneas a procession of his descendants over twelve centuries, culminating in Augustus. Aeneas now knows his Destiny–to found the Roman people.

 

The second half of the Aeneid, Books 7-12, tells the story of the escalating wrath inspired by Juno that forces Aeneas to go to war in Italy.

 

    Book 7: Aeneas finally arrives in Latium, where he is welcomed by King Latinus, whose only child is Lavinia. A powerful neighbor, Turnus, King of the Rutulians, wants to marry Lavinia, but omens and oracles have foretold that a stranger would become her husband, so Latinus is willing to marry his daughter Lavinia to Aeneas. Juno is not ready to give up her struggle against Destiny, although she knows she cannot win. She fetches the Fury Allecto from the underworld and urges her to stir the Latins into frenzy. Allecto instills poisonous rage into Amata, Lavinia’s mother and into Turnus, Lavinia’s suitor. Then she sets up Ascanius (Iulus) to shoot a pet deer belonging to Sylvia, a local peasant girl; Allecto blows her hellish horn, stimulating the local farmers to attack the Trojans. Latinus tries to avoid the conflict, but Juno opens gates of war. Lines of alliance are drawn and the troops start to gather.

 

    Book 8: Aeneas travels to the king of the Arcadians, Evander, seeking alliance. Evander welcomes him, introduces him to the ancient rural piety of the region, and offers Aeneas troops led by his own son Pallas. Meanwhile, Venus persuades her husband Vulcan to make new armor for Aeneas. The shield portrays critical moments when Rome was saved. At the center of the shield is the Battle of Actium. As in the underworld, where the procession of descendants leads from Aeneas to Octavian, the shield connects the beginning of Roman history in Aeneas to its culmination in Octavian’s decisive battle at Actium that finalized the Augustan peace.

 

    Book 9: Here, the battle goes on at Trojan Camp; Aeneas has not yet returned from seeking alliances. Two best friends, Nisus and Euryalus, foray into the sleeping enemy camp and slaughter many before being killed themselves. Ascanius gets his first real taste of battle and kills his first man, Numanus. Turnus gets into the Trojan stockade and rages furiously, slaughtering men. Finally the Trojans rally and Turnus, exhausted, jumps into the river and escapes.

 

    Book 10: Jupiter wants peace, but Juno and Venus are still bickering, so he lets the battle continue, since “the Fates will find their way.” Finally Aeneas returns with numerous allies. Turnus and Aeneas both rage in battle. Pallas fights bravely, but is finally killed by Turnus, who strips off Pallas’ heavy decorated belt as a trophy. Juno recognizes by now that it’s about over, but begs Jupiter to let her spare Turnus’ life for a little while. He agrees and Juno fashions a phantom resembling Aeneas which lures Turnus out of the battle onto a ship which then drifts away carrying the bewildered Turnus to safety while the battle continues without him.

 

    Book 11: Aeneas learns that Pallas has died, and he prepares to send him back to his father for his funeral. Both sides bury their dead. The Latins hold a quarrelsome council over whether or not to sue for peace. King Latinus wants to make peace and share his land and rule with the Trojans. Turnus is in favor of continuing the war, which resumes. Camilla, a woman warrior ally of Turnus, enters the fray, fights bravely, and is killed.

 

    Book 12: Turnus challenges Aeneas to a duel that will settle the war. Meanwhile, Juno tells the nymph Juturna, Turnus’ sister, to help him if she can, because Turnus is no match for Aeneas in single combat. Juturna provokes the Latins into general battle. Aeneas seeks Turnus, but Juturna, disguised as Turnus’ charioteer, races around, not letting Turnus stop and fight. Aeneas is now furious. He starts to burn down King Latinus’ city, to root out the resistance once and for all. Queen Amata hangs herself. Turnus tells his sister to stop interfering, because fate has won, and he wants to fight Aeneas honorably before he dies.

 

    Turnus and Aeneas begin to duel, and Jupiter holds up his scales to confirm their fates. Turnus’ sword breaks; he panics and runs away, Aeneas pursuing. However, gods are still interfering. Juturna hands the fleeing Turnus a sword, while Venus pulls Aeneas’ spear free from a tree it had lodged in. Jupiter is fed up by now and confronts Juno, who finally gives up, asking only that the ensuing people be called Latins and the Trojans lose their identity. Jupiter agrees to create a single Latin race from the two warring peoples. Jupiter sends two Furies to chase Juturna away from Turnus, and Aeneas throws his spear, wounding Turnus. Turnus begs for his life, but Aeneas sees the belt of dead Pallas on Turnus and, enraged, kills Turnus. End of story.

 

 

AENEAS–A NEW KIND OF HERO

 

Aeneas’ dominant trait is piety. Piety for Aeneas did not mean faith so much as obedience and careful attention to the will of the gods, especially Jupiter, so that he could do the right thing in the right way. This piety expressed itself in right relations to the gods, to ones family, and to the state, as well as in carrying out rituals in a correct, thoughtful manner. Aeneas is:

 

 

Pious   Aeneas carries his household gods from Troy to Italy; he holds Memorial Games for Anchises; he immediately obeys Mercury’s message to leave Dido.

Steadfast          He feels Dido’s grief, but is unmoved in his actions.

Compassionate            He stops the boxing match when Entellus is overwhelming Dares; he grieves for his dead soldiers.

Fair      He awards the prizes fairly during the memorial games.

Brave He fights bravely at Troy, only stopping because Venus tells him to leave; he is equally brave combating Turnus in Latium.

Willing to cooperate with Destiny     He learns the future in the Underworld and acts willingly to bring it about.

Paternal           It is Aeneas’ fatherly duty to Ascanius to leave Dido and found a new nation for his descendants.

A Leader         Aeneas soothes his weary followers after the storm, “our god will give an end to this as well”; he is concerned with feeding and comforting them; in Italy he forms alliances and leads the fighting.

Sensitive         When Dido asks him to tell about the fall of Troy, he tells her “O Queen–too terrible for tongues the pain/you ask me to renew”(II 4-5); he is exquisitely aware of the “tears of things,” the pain of human life.

Emotional        Aeneas narrates the fall of Troy with great feeling, such as, “the first time savage horror took me” (II 751).

 

THE DIDO PROBLEM:: Passion and Politics

 

Dido is not just a nice lady who has hard luck with love. Not only does Virgil explain that Cupid poisons Dido with love, but he also gives us plenty of hints about Dido’s potential for danger to Aeneas, such as her fury when she is about to kill herself:

 

        And could I not have dragged his body off, and scattered him

        piecemeal upon the waters, limb by limb?

        Or butchered all his comrades, even served

        Ascanius himself as banquet dish

        upon his father’s table? [IV 826]

 

This sinister echo of how Atreus fed Thyestes’ children to him does not suggest that poor Dido is merely upset over her disappearing lover. Indeed, Dido’s funeral pyre itself is chock full of elements of witchcraft, not approved practice in Roman court circles.

 

However, Virgil also portrays Dido’s love for Aeneas with such sympathy that readers appreciate her love, hate Aeneas for leaving her, and mostly ignore the negative undertone. Dido is largely modelled on two ancient, very bad women–Cleopatra and Medea in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius.

 

Cleopatra was the Egyptian queen who fought alongside Roman Mark Antony against Octavian at the Battle of Actium. Virgil presents her as the epitome of the decadent, treacherous Orient (as opposed to the noble Roman West). She and Antony are part of the center of the shield of Aeneas, with their barbarian troops and barbaric gods, opposing the true leaders of Rome and the household gods brought to Italy by Aeneas. At one level, Aeneas’ affair with Dido is the crossing point–he has left the Orient (Troy), and is delayed by one last Oriental experience (decadent passion), before going forth to become the Latin ancestor of the Roman people.

 

Medea, in the Argonautica, fell quickly and madly in love with Jason and betrayed her father to please Jason, helping him through trickery and witchcraft to acquire the Golden Fleece. Afraid of her father’s anger, Medea ran off with Jason; she also lured her half-brother Apsyrtus to Jason who killed him. This was just part of her notorious career as a passionate woman and a witch. A Roman reader would have recognized unpleasant echoes of Medea in Virgil’s Dido.

 

OTHER NEGATIVE PASSIONATE CHARACTERS

 

The other passionate characters in the Aeneid are mostly deplorable. The list is headed by the raging goddess Juno and the raging warrior Turnus. It includes the Harpies, Allecto, Amata, the Trojan Women burning their ships, and the Latins in general when in battle frenzy. Even Aeneas is touched by passionate fury twice: during the sack of Troy and during the battle in Latium, especially at the final moment when he kills Turnus. Passion spreads like a virus. Venus uses Cupid to infect Dido with the passion of love. Juno uses Allecto to infect Amata, Turnus and the Latin masses with the passion for war. In every case except for, perhaps, Aeneas’ final passionate killing of Turnus, passion opposes the will of Jupiter, Destiny and Fate. This alone shows us how little Virgil approved of such intense emotion.

 

GODS, THE WILL OF JUPITER, DESTINY/FATE

 

Jupiter knows and affirms fate. But there is also Destiny, the notion that there is a necessary future to strive towards. This is the fate that Jupiter upholds, a pattern that is not a simple working out of conflicts.

 

Juno and Venus act in opposition to the necessary path of the fates. They know perfectly well what must come to pass, because Jupiter tells them, but each has her own passionate agenda, one the irrational, intense love of a mother for her son, the other raw frenzied hatred of the Trojans whose descendants will destroy Carthage. They must both lose, but gracefully, as goddesses lose, finally accepting the will of Jupiter. Similarly, on a human level, Dido, Amata and Turnus resist the fates, acting counter to the will of Jupiter. They must be destroyed, just as Octavian destroyed Antony and Cleopatra.

 

Aeneas, who spends his life trying to do what he should, not only has many painfully confusing experiences as he misinterprets omens and follows wrong leads, but his final cooperation with fate leads him to relinquish every shred of personal happiness. He lost his beloved wife, his city, almost everything he cared about at Troy. He left his comfortable liaison with Dido. He will marry a woman he does not choose, whose people he has slaughtered; he will create the foundation for the next twelve hundred years of Roman history, but die still outside the promised land of Rome.

 

Task 8. Aeneid, Bhagavad-Gita, and the Ramayana Reading Selections.

To-do date: 25 Feb at 23:59

TASK 8Read the selections from the Aeneid:  Book VI 
http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.6.vi.html  (Links to an external site.)

 and the selections from the

Bhagavad-Gita 


https://bhagavad-gita.org/index-english.html; (Links to an external site.)



https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-bhagavad-gita (Links to an external site.)

or the Ramayana :  CANTO CXXX.: THE CONSECRATION (
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry501.htm (Links to an external site.)
).


https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-ramayana (Links to an external site.)

 

WORLD LITERATURE I

 

Activities for Virgil’s Aeneid (Task Eight)

 

Read through the Virgil Study Guide and all of the listed Activities before making your selection. Make a copy of the Activity question to begin your response. Post your Activity to the Forum in Unit 2 in JICS. These Activity entries must be thoughtful; each one should be the equivalent of at least a full typed page or more in length (e.g. not less than 250 words).  They may be longer if you need to say more on your topic. You will not be able to do these Activity entries properly unless you have carefully read the assigned literature.

 

· In Book I of the Aeneid, Aeneas is presented as a new kind of hero, who wills to do what he has to do. Compare/contrast Aeneas to Odysseus or Gilgamesh, who do what they please and even get the gods to cooperate at times. Do you have any ideas about why they are such different sorts of heroes? Use specific examples from the Odyssey, Gilgamesh and/or the Aeneid to support your ideas.

 

· Compare Kalypso and Kirke in the Odyssey (Books V and X) to Dido in the Aeneid (Book IV). Concentrate on how they delay the hero’s journey. Do you see any similarities? Differences? Explain and support your ideas using examples from both texts.

 

· Being beloved by a deity has advantages, but can also create problems. Compare the relationship of Odysseus with his patron goddess Athena to Aeneas’ relationship with his goddess mother Venus. Do you see any interesting similarities? Differences? What do these relationships tell you about the nature of the Greek and Roman gods? Explain your ideas using supporting examples from both texts.

 

· Irrational, “anti-fate” behavior in the Aeneid is mostly concentrated in the females, human and divine. Select several of these females to consider. List each one with a brief explanation of her irrational actions and attributes. Do you think Virgil is saying something about women’s behavior in general? What? Be specific and support your ideas with examples from the text. You may want to explore the website Diotima for background information about women in the Aeneid.

 

· Book VI of the Aeneid presents the Underworld as a place for purification, punishment, prophetic information, rest and recreation between lifetimes. The Odyssey presents Hades as a vague and boring place where everyone goes after death and no one leaves. However, the dead have some kinds of knowledge that the living do not. Compare/contrast these two visions of the underworld and try to make some interesting point about their differences. Support your ideas with specific examples from Book VI of the Aeneid and Books XI and XXIV of the Odyssey. Note: the textbook does not include all of book VI of the Aeneid, so if you choose this Activity, go to the Course Materials Table on the Course Home Page to get the electronic text of the full book VI.

· Virgil was cherished throughout the Christian Middle Ages as a most virtuous poet, even though he died in 19 BCE., a few years before Jesus was born. Virgil was concerned with issues of divine will and how a good man could align himself with that divine will, and these were issues that medieval Christians also were interested in, although their answers were quite different.

 

· Read the Sermon on the Mount (Volume 2, 1209-1213) OR online (see Course Materials table on Course Home Page) and compare the ideas of how to be a good human being presented there with the ideas about how to be a good human being that you find in the Aeneid. Note that these ideas are VERY different from Virgil’s, yet both are deeply serious thoughts on how a good person ought to act. Support your ideas with plentiful examples from both readings.

 

· Compare Aeneas’ journey to the underworld with that of either Gilgamesh or Odysseus. In what ways are they similar? How are they different. So what? Support your ideas with plenty of specific examples from the two stories you choose to write about.

 

· The Aeneid ends abruptly when Aeneas kills Turnus in Book 12. Why do you think Virgil ended his epic like this? What point was he making? Or do you think he would have changed the ending if he had lived to complete his revisions of the Aeneid? Develop your ideas using specific examples from the Aeneid to support them.

 

· What about poor Dido? Do you think she was to blame for what happened to her? Was Juno? Venus? Aeneas? Explain your answer with examples from the story. If you choose this Activity you should read at least Books 1-4 of the Aeneid before writing about it.

 

· Reread the scene of Dido’s suicide carefully. Notice all the witchcraft involved. Do you think that Virgil uses this to make us less sympathetic to Dido? If so, why? Is Dido dangerous? Can you find echos of Circe or other negative women or goddesses in her? Support your ideas using specific examples from the story.

 

· Fate is a crucial concept in the Aeneid. Start by getting a good definition of fate from a dictionary. Be sure to copy it in quote marks and cite the source. Then look in the Aeneid for several places where fate is mentioned and discuss each example, explaining what you think Virgil meant by “Fate.” Do you think his concept of fate is like the dictionary definition? How? Be specific and support your ideas with plenty of examples from the Aeneid. Is either the dictionary concept of fate or Virgil’s like yours? How or how not? Give specific examples to support your insights here.

 

· Aeneas developed a tainted reputation among some medieval writers. Among other things, he was reputed to be homosexual and reputed to have collaborated with the Greeks to betray Troy, so that he could escape from the conquered city. Can you see any aspects of Aeneas in the Aeneid that might have led to such a degrading of his character? Do you think Virgil meant to include any negative traits? If so, what do you think they were? Be very specific, supporting your ideas with examples from the Aeneid.

 

· Go to Roman Power and Roman Imperial Sculpture. Read through the text and think about how the Aeneid was a product of this world. Augustus was, in a sense, the real world hero of the Aeneid, as well as the ultimate patron for whom Virgil wrote. Look through the images and select a few that seem to you especially relevant to the world of the Aeneid. Identify and describe them and explain in specific detail how these images affect your understanding of the Aeneid.

 

· Virgil’s Aeneid and Exodus from the Hebrew Bible both tell about a somewhat reluctant, god-selected hero who leads his people out of disaster through many dangers and difficulties to the ultimate goal of a promised country (which must be fought for) and a great heritage. Compare the characters and experiences of Moses and Aeneas to see what they have in common and see if you can identify any profound ways in which they are different. This is a complex topic and you must use specific examples from both the Aeneid and Exodus to support your ideas. Use a version of Exodus from the Hebrew Bible. Use the link to the Hebrew Bible in Module One.

Task 1: Roland Study Guide

TASK 1.Read the Roland Study Guide located below, which will give you background information on the Song of Roland and its crusading context.

WORLD LITERATURE I

 

Task One:  Roland Study Guide

 

by Diane Thompson, NVCC, ELI

 

CHARLEMAGNE AND RONCEVAUX

 

Pope Leo crowned Charlemagne in Rome in Christmas Day, 800, making him the first Western Roman emperor in more than 300 years. As head of the Holy Roman Empire, Charlemagne became a figure of legend and stories for hundreds of years.

 

Note: Charles = Charlemagne; Franks = French

 

August 15, 778 Battle of Roncevaux

 

What really happened according to French and Arab Chroniclers of the time:

 

Charlemagne went into Spain “at the request of the …Saracen governor of Saragossa…who was in revolt against his master, the…emir of Cordova. …Charlemagne appeared at Saragossa, where he thought the gates would open [but]…The city resisted, the siege dragged on; bad news from Saxony necessitated a hasty return…. On the way they encountered a city that refused them passage although it was Christian: Pamplona. The emperor razed it without mercy, then fell into the fatal ambush in which he came to know the “treachery of the Basques.” But it is possible that the Basques were given considerable assistance by the Arabs.” (Le Gentil, 14-15)

 

ARABS IN SPAIN

 

To twelfth century Europeans, “The Arab world was…a civilization apparently superior to their own in most if not all aspects of daily living, one whose trade goods were coveted and depended on [and] whose luxury was astounding….

 

    “By Christian standards, the Arabs were heretics, and what they had done to merit such a marvelous destiny was a mystery and a source of some concern. And…the orthodox establishment was appalled….in Europe in the Middle Ages the foreign devil was an Arab.”

 

    Europeans thought that Islam was “either a pagan religion or a Christian heresy…characterized by moral licentiousness, permissiveness, self-gratification and cultural decadence.” (Menocal, 40-45)

 

CRUSADING SOLDIERS OF CHRIST

 

The “peace of god” movement was essentially a response of the church to the breakdown of the royal Carolingian authority in France. The church tried to establish a peace which declared that it was immoral to harm unarmed churchmen or unarmed peasants, or to harm churches and their possessions. One effect of this peace was the development and codification of a Christian warrior ethic… which became associated with “building of the kingdom of God” as a soldier. (Duby, 86-87; 169)

 

    “During the late eleventh century the Eastern Empire was being raided by new enemies, Turkish tribesmen from central Asia, and in 1091 the Emperor Alexius I requested the help of Pope Urban II….what he got, in 1096, was the First Crusade. From that time onward, throughout the whole of the twelfth and until well into the thirteenth century, successive waves of crusading armies continued to arrive from the West.”

 

    By 1096 the idea of “`fighting for Christ’ could be interpreted as militant knight-service….The knight set forth under the banner of Christ, war-leader and king, to wrest the “land of His birthright from the infidels; if he fell, he had his reward in Heaven; if he conquered he won renown, an estate on earth and the Kingdom of Heaven besides.” (Heer, 126, 127)

 

    “The eleventh-century crusaders were certain that they had God’s support against the infidels; each of them felt, at some decisive moment, that he was part of a celestial army.” (Gentil, 123)

 

FEUDALISM

 

There is currently a great deal of controversy over what exactly feudalism was, or even if it ever existed. However, the concept is useful for understanding the roles in Roland, especially the relationships of Roland to Charlemagne and of Roland to God.

 

A vassal was a “free man who put himself under the protection of someone more rich and powerful…The vassal had the obligation of rendering his lord “aid and counsel”…[which] meant…supporting the lord in all his business and in his numerous lawsuits and disputes” and providing military service. (Heer, 35-37)

 

“In return for his service, the vassal was granted…a gift…” of land, office or position at court. Ideally a fief. This was a two-way contract; but the obligation was to the death of the lord, but no further. (Harrison, 23) There was also a religious model of the concept of feudalism, which is expressed in Roland, as when he offers his glove to God.

 

The duties of a loyal vassal to his lord are clearly expressed in Roland:

 

        “A man must bear some hardships for his lord,

        stand everything, the great heat, the great cold,

        lose the hide and hair on him for his good lord.

        Now let each man make sure to strike hard here…”

 

            (all English quotes of Roland are from Goldin’s translation in Norton)

 

CHANSONS DE GESTE

 

        “In the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, [French] heroic epics known as chansons de geste (songs of great deeds) were enormously popular… warlike and heroic in mood, they often consisted of exaggerated accounts of events in the reign of Charlemagne…. Like old-fashioned Westerns, the chansons de geste were packed with action, and their heroes tended to steer clear of sentimental entanglements with women. Warlike prowess, courage, and loyalty to one’s lord and fellows-in-arms were the virtues stressed in these heroic epics. The battle descriptions, often characterized by gory realism, tell of Christian knights fighting with almost superhuman strength against fantastic odds. ” (Hollister 262-3)

 

The chansons de geste “all went back to the French Chanson de Roland and celebrated the noble Franks as invincible warriors in their fight against “infidel gods….” (Heer, 166)  More than eighty of the chansons de geste survive, in whole, or partially. (Pepin, 113)

 

Gaston Paris’ theory of epic fermentation is based on the notion that people react to contemporary events by composing “short songs, fragmentary and impassioned, called cantilenes. When united and organized around a central theme or character so as to form long, continuous narratives, they became the chansons de geste.”   (Gentil, 55)

 

An interesting idea about the origins of the Chansons de Geste is the pilgrim route theory of epic origins. “Bedier believes that in the eleventh century there were pilgrimage routes; on these routes, sanctuaries; and in these sanctuaries, monks. Local and religious legends, linked either with the monuments or with regional disputes and organized to varying degrees, grew up along these routes. They were preserved in the sanctuaries and maintained by the monks for propaganda purposes…. Thanks to such favorable conditions as the Crusades or the eleventh-century cultural renewal, the jongleurs and the monks revived them.” (Gentil, 58)

 

However, Ramon Menendez Pidal “believes that the origins of romance literature go much farther back than the existing texts and can only be explained if a long and rich tradition of lost works is supposed.” he has much excellent scholarship to support this. (Gentil, 66)

 

CHANSONS AS POETRY:

 

The chansons were sung or chanted by singers called jongleurs; we do not know what the melodies were like. The poems were divided into stanzas called “laisses” of irregular length. They used assonance, not rhyme to tie each laisse together– e.g. all the lines in a laisse used the same final vowel. The following example is a part of laisse 176 showing assonance. (from Le Gentil, p. 152)

 

    Li quens Rollant se jut desuz un pin;

    Envers Espaigne en ad turnet sun vis.

    De plusurs choses a remembrer li prist,

    De tantes teres cum li bers conquist,

    De dulce France, des humes de son lign,

    De Carlemagne, sun seignor, kil nurrit;

 

Note how each line uses the same final vowel, in this case, “i,” and also note the pause at the end of each line. The English translation of the same section echoes the repetition of final vowels, but not to the extent of the original French:

 

    Count Roland lay stretched out beneath a pine;

    he turned his face toward the land of Spain,

    began to remember many things now:

    how many lands, brave man, he had conquered;

    and he remembered: sweet France, the men of his line,

    remembered Charles, his lord, who fostered him:

 

Repetition was also used in “laisses similaires” which use the same group of themes and motifs, with some variation, in two or more successive verses.

 

A number of laisses end with the letters AOI. No one knows what they mean, although they may be either some kind of musical indication or an abbreviated prayer. They do seem to occur at important moments in the poem.

 

PARATACTIC STRUCTURE

 

Auerbach calls the structure of the Roland “paratactic,” meaning that the individual parts or laisses are strung together like beads instead of being interwoven like a tapestry (as is the Odyssey or the Aeneid). A modern example of paratactic structure is the MTV video, where images flash one after the other, often repeating with minor variations, not unlike the laisses similaires. There is very little logical connection among these images, but they are thematically related as are the laisses in Roland.

 

CHANSON DE ROLAND

 

The Roland, as we have it, was composed about 1100; our text (Oxford Ms.) dates from around the second quarter of 12th c., Anglo-Norman dialect. The author may have been a man named Turoldus, since the last line says (maybe) that Turoldus wrote this poem. Although it claims to tell the story of a real battle, it is mostly fiction.

 

The Chanson de Roland “describes Charlemagne’s expedition into Spain and the disastrous battle of the rear guard…It recalls one of the most famous victims of the ambush. But this is absolutely all that connects it to history. The rest…is legend and poetry.” (Gentil, 15)

 

The dating of the poet is supported by the content and emotional context of the Roland, which expresses attitudes prevalent at the time of the first crusade: “the ideal by which he is inspired, the conflict he recalls, and the meaning he gives it, all suggest that he lived in the memorable years that knew Christianity while Urban II was pope, particularly since it is the First Crusade to the East…that dominates his thought.” (Gentil, 23)

 

THE STORY OF THE CHANSON DE ROLAND

 

The poem can be divided into four major units:

1          the betrayal of Roland by Ganelon

2          the first battle at Roncevaux –Roland dies

3          the second battle at Roncevaux–Franks win

4          Ganelon’s trial and death

 

The story opens in the Saracen court in Saragossa, where King Marsilion is weary of fighting Charlemagne and asks his men for advice on how to get him to leave Spain. Blancandrin advises Marsilion to send treasure and noble sons as hostages to Charlemagne, and promise to meet him in Aix on Michaelmas to convert to Christianity. The Saracens, of course, won’t show and the hostages will be killed, but it’s better than losing Spain.

 

Blancandrin goes to Charlemagne’s camp with gifts of treasure and the Saracen proposal. The French barons debate it; Roland is against trusting the Saracens; Ganelon wants to end the war and go home. The barons agree to send an envoy and several volunteer, including Roland, but Charlemagne refuses to risk losing them; then Roland suggests Ganelon, who becomes furious even before Roland laughs at him. Ganelon warns Roland he will get revenge.

 

Ganelon lets Charlemagne’s glove drop, a super discourtesy, but goes off on his errand to the Saracens. On the way, Ganelon and Blancandrin plot to get rid of Roland, since they mistakenly think that Roland’s death will bring the war to an end, which they both desire.

 

When Ganelon gets to the Saracen camp he first insults them, getting King Marsilion furious, and then proposes his “deal” to get Roland into the rearguard so that the Saracens can destroy him. It’s a deal.

 

Ganelon returns to Charlemagne, telling him that he has a truce with the Saracens who will come to France in one month to convert to Christianity.

 

Charlemagne and the troops prepare to leave Spain and Ganelon volunteers Roland to protect the rearguard. Charlemagne and Roland are furious, but cannot refuse.

 

Roland and 20,000 Franks are left behind and are promptly ambushed. Although they fight valiantly against the demonic Saracens, they do not stand a chance, since they are completely outnumbered.

 

Roland and his men have three horn blowing discussions:

1          Oliver asks Roland to blow the horn to summon Charlemagne and Roland refuses because he does not want shame for himself and his kin.

2          Roland wants to blow horn, but Oliver says no because it’s too late to do any good.

3          Turpin says that Roland should blow the horn, not for rescue, but for revenge and Christian burial.

 

In the first horn blowing discussion, Oliver asks Roland to blow his horn, but Roland refuses because he does not want shame for himself and his kin

 

    Said Oliver: “The pagan force is great;

    from what I see, our French here are too few.

    Roland, my companion, sound your horn then,

    Charles will hear it, the army will come back.”

    Roland replies: “I’d be a fool to do it.

    I would lose my good name all through sweet France.” (laisse 83)

 

Oliver’s request makes good sense, but Roland is stubborn and proud.

 

    Roland replies: “May it never please God

    that any man alive should come to say

    that pagans–pagans!–once made me sound this horn:

    no kin of mine will ever bear that shame.” (laisse 85)

 

Here Roland shows his démesuré or rashness as well as his fear of being shamed.

 

In the second horn blowing discussion, Roland wants to blow the horn, but this time Oliver says no.

 

    And Roland said: “I’ll sound the olifant,

    Charles will hear it, drawing through the passes,

    I promise you, the Franks will return at once.”

    Said Oliver: “That would be a great disgrace,

    a dishonor and reproach to all your kin,

    the shame of it would last them all their lives.

 

Oliver is mad and says it’s too late now. (laisse 129)

 

    “I will tell you what makes a vassal good:

    it is judgment, it is never madness;

    restraint is worth more than the raw nerve of a fool.

    Frenchmen are dead because of your wildness.” (laisse 130)

 

Oliver’s point is that it is too late now to expect Charlemagne to save their lives, so it would be dishonorable to summon him to help them (e.g. he would fail at rescue).

Oliver is wise, Roland is brave. But, one cannot jump to easy conclusions, because wisdom of limited value in this situation, where Roland is heading for holy martyrdom against the demonic pagans.

 

In the third horn blowing discussion, Bishop Turpin says that Roland should blow the horn, not for rescue, but to call Charlemagne’s troops, so they can provide Christian burial and revenge.

 

Roland finally blows his horn and ruptures his temples; he will die from this self-injury; no pagan injures him. Now Roland goes through a process of repentance and prayer which prepares him for his final ascent to heaven. He continues to kill pagans while Charlemagne’s troops sound their horns to warn away the pagans who flee leaving the dying Roland. Roland weeps for the dead Franks, walks toward Spain, and collapses.

 

He tries to break his sword, but cannot. He lies facing the Saracens, with his sword and the olifant beneath him and “offers his glove, for all his sins, to God.” He prays and God sends the Angel Gabriel to take his glove and bear Roland’s soul directly to heaven.

 

This is the end of the selection in our textbook, but the story goes on…

 

God stops the sun so Charlemagne’s returning troops have time to drive Marsilion’s pagan troops into the river Ebro, where they all drown.

 

Meanwhile…

 

Marsilion flees to Saragossa; his right hand was cut off by Roland during the battle.

 

Marsilion had sent for Baligant 7 years earlier when Charlemagne had first invaded Spain. Baligant finally arrives at Saragossa the day after Roland’s death. Baligant is a negative parallel to Charles, even older (alive in the time of Homer and Vergil!) and a pagan, demonic threat to Christian France.

 

The dying Marsilion gives his lands to Baligant, to reinforce the point that Baligant represents the whole pagan world fighting against the whole Christian world.

 

The pagan host includes many monstrous creatures, some are not ordinary human soldiers (e.g. demonic troops opposing Christian troops)

 

Marsilion, his right hand cut off by Roland, weighted by sin, dies of grief “and yielded up his soul to lively devils.”

 

Charles defeats Baligant in single combat, aided by God who sends the Angel Gabriel to encourage him. Once Baligant is dead, the pagans all flee “God wills them not to stay.” Charlemagne takes Saragossa, destroys the mosques and synagogues, forces more than 100,000 pagans to convert to Christianity and kills those who refuse.

 

Roland, Olivier and Turpin are buried at Blaye on the way home. When Charlemagne reaches Aix, the trial of Ganelon begins. Charles accuses Ganelon who says his acts were revenge, not treason. The barons debate, they don’t want trouble, and except for Thierry, are not inclined to condemn Ganelon. Thierry explains his case:

 

    Though Roland may have injured Ganelon,

    your service should have guaranteed his safety.

    Betraying him made Ganelon a felon’

    he broke his oath to you and did you wrong.

    For this I judge that he should hang and die. (laisse 277)

 

Then, Thierry offers to combat a kinsman of Ganelon to decide who is right. Pinabel offers to fight Thierry; Charles asks for thirty of Ganelon’s kinsman as hostages for this fight. Thierry kills Pinabel

 

    The Franks shout: “God has worked a miracle!

    It’s only just that Ganelon be hanged,

    together with his kin who took his side.”

    So, the Franks hang Ganelon’s thirty relatives, saying:

    “A traitor kills himself as well as others.”

 

This is strong message about the wickedness of treason and how it spreads to the entire family. Then Ganelon is torn into quarters and goes “to his damnation.”

 

Finally, the Angel Gabriel comes from God to Charles to tell him that he must go and help the besieged Christians of Imphe. Charles does not want to go and cries, “God, how tiring is my life!” e.g. eternal struggle against pagans is brutal and exhausting; it’s no fun being emperor.

 

ISSUES: KINGS AND HEROES

 

Roland is a perfect embodiment of European Christian feudal warrior virtues. Roland is quite different from most other heroes we have observed, such as Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Achilles, and Aeneas.

 

Roland is in many ways most like the greatest of Greek warriors, Achilles, who was under a high king, Agamemnon, at Troy.

 

However Achilles did not have a vassal relationship, nor did he exhibit piety, although he was emotional and rashly bold. Neither Odysseus nor Gilgamesh display a strong sense of responsibility to their countries. Aeneas does display powerful moral responsibility, but is not rash; he is able to control his emotions and is only ferocious when there is good reason (belt of Pallas). Aeneas is more like Charlemagne than like Roland.

 

Roland’s Character: Roland is a good vassal, both of Charlemagne and Christ. At death he delivers his fealty to God. Roland is fierce, proud, courageous, a loyal vassal, a warm friend, very conscious of honor, fears failure, and is pious

 

Roland’s flaw is ungovernable pride or rashness (démesuré). Roland provokes Ganelon to treason at Roncevaux and refuses to sound the horn when first attacked.

 

However, although Roland is responsible for Roncevaux, he repents and his sacrifice is not in vain nor ambition wrong because he is fighting for God and Christianity. His martyr’s blood promises resurrection of the soul and the triumph of faith. He dies of blowing the horn; no Saracen weapon touches him.

 

Roland and his fellows die as Christian martyrs and their bodies are treated as such. The hearts of Roland, Olivier and Turpin are cut out and put in a marble casket–reliquary, such as was used for saints’ body parts.

 

ISSUES: RESPONSIBILITY

 

The poet judges actions “in terms of whether they help or harm the Crusade. Thus Roland’s rashness, his démesuré, is transformed into an ideal sacrifice worthy of glorification. But Ganelon’s desire to avenge himself for a personal injury leads him to commit the most unpardonable of crimes.” (Gentil, 50)

 

“Ganelon believes that he is taking revenge against one man, while in fact he is betraying a sacred cause.” (Gentil, 94)

 

Did Ganelon’s action constitute treason?

 

    Ganelon says no:

    Roland had committed certain unspecified wrongs against him in the past.

    He (Ganelon) had publicly challenged Roland, so there was no treason.

    The jury of peers waffles.

    Thierry says yes, Ganelon is guilty, and combats Pinabel to prove it.

    Thierry wins, THEREFORE Ganelon is a traitor and must die (along with 30 of his relatives).

    God aids Thierry. The outcome is controlled by the principle of success–the winner is right because he wins; he wins because he is right.

 

PAGANS, DEMONS AND FOREIGNERS

 

Pagans as Demonic:

 

The pagan world is presented as a demonic mirror-image of the Christian. For example, the pagans, like the Franks, have twelve peers. Also, while Charles is presented as a Christ figure, Blancandrin is presented as an anti-Christ figure who is willing to send his own son to certain death as a hostage in order to keep his own honor and lands.

 

Saracens are described as rather noble at first to build up their worth as an enemy. In the actual battles they are demonic and rotten. When they are killed, Satan carries off their souls to hell, while angel Gabriel carries off Roland’s soul to heaven.

 

When the pagans lose the first battle at Roncevaux, they become angry and overthrow the idols of their gods because they failed to protect them:

 

    They scurry to Apollo, in a crypt,

    insult him, mutilate him horribly:

    “Oh evil god, why bring such shame on us?

    Why our king you allowed to be defeated?

    You give poor pay to those who serve your well!”

    They take away his scepter and his crown,

    then hang him from a column by the hands,

    and topple it to earth about their feet.

    They pound on him and shatter him with mauls.

    They strip the fire-red gem off Termagant

    and throw Mohammed down into a ditch,

    where pigs and dogs will gnaw and trample him. (laisse 187)

 

Note the bizarre combination of Apollo, Termagant and Mohammed. The Roland poet was ignorant of other religions, and could not differentiate one from another, which did not keep him from hating all of them.

 

The point of the poem is that Charlemagne overthrows the pagan religion as well as a physical army; this is a Christian victory, a Crusade.

 

Because pagan idols were thought to be inhabited by demons if not the descendents of the ancient pagan gods, after Charlemagne conquers Saragossa:

 

    He sends a thousand Frenchmen through the town

    to hunt out all the synagogues and mosques;

    with mauls of iron and axes which they carry,

    they smash the effigies and all the idols;

    no sorcery or magic will be left. (laisse 266)

 

The Franks hate, loathe and fear anything not French and Christian.

 

Finally, Charlemagne’s troops forcibly baptize 100,000 souls and kill any who resist, which evidently was pleasing to their feudal Crusading Christian God.

 

The Universal Duel between Good and Evil

 

God intervenes three times:

1          when Roland is about to die

2          when Charlemagne battles Baligant

3          when Thierry battles Pinabel

 

The battles at Roncevaux are part of an unending, painful crusade of the Christian West against the Pagan East which requires eternal vigilance and sacrifice from the Christians.

 

This eternal conflict between Christian good and Pagan evil peaks in the duel between Charlemagne and Baligant. Their battle involves all the forces of Islam against all the forces of the Christian West:

 

Charlemagne himself is the figure of militant Christianity in the Crusades. Consequently, God appears in the action several times as in the duel between Charles and Baligant:

 

    Charles staggers, comes quite close to falling down,

    but God does not desire him dead or vanquished.

    Saint Gabriel has hurried to his side

    and asked: “What are you doing, mighty king?”

    When he hears the angel’s blessed voice, King Charles

    no longer is in fear or dread of death;

    his mind clears and his energy returns.

    With France’s sword he smashes the emir

    The pagans flee–God wills them not to stay

 

Baligant and Charlemagne are the embodiment of the two conflicting religions, Islam and Christianity. Consequently, God and the angels quite naturally get involved.

 

As we have seen, after Charlemagne wins, he destroys the mosques and idols of Islam and forcibly baptizes the pagans to emphasize the Christian Crusading nature of the battle that has been won.

 

WORKS CITED

 

Auerbach, Eric. Mimesis. Princeton U.P. 1953…4th paperback ed. 1974.

 

Bishop, Morris. The Horizon Book of the Middle Ages. N.Y.: American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., 1968.

 

Duby, Georges. The Chivalrous Society. Trans. by Cynthia Postan. Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1977. First Paperback printing, 1980.

 

Heer, Frederich. The Medieval World: Europe 1100-1350. Trans. from the German by Janet Sondheimer. New York: A Mentor Book pub. by the New American Library, 1962.

 

Hollister, C, Warren. Medieval Europe: a short history. 1964. 3rd edition. N.Y.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1974.

 

Le Gentil, Pierre. The Chanson de Roland. Trans. by Frances F. Beer. Cambridge: Harvard U. P., 1969.

 

Menocal, Maria Rosa. The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History. 1987. First paperback printing: Philadelphia: U. of Penn. Press, 1990.

 

The Song of Roland. Translated by Frederick Goldin. In The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces: Expanded Edition. Vol. 1. Gen. Editor, Maynard Mack. N. Y.: W. W. Norton & Co., 1995, pp 1625-1678. Used for any quotes through laisse 176.

 

The Song of Roland. Newly Translated and with an Introduction by Robert Harrison. N.Y.: A Mentor Book from New American Library, 1970. Used for any quotes after laisse 176.

Task 2. Read the Song of Roland and The Sermon on the Mount

TASK 2. Read the Song of Roland and The Sermon on the Mount (The Bible, Matthew Chapters 5-7). The link for The Song of Roland is: 

http://www.europeanamericansunited.org/school1/Traditional/Roland.htm (Links to an external site.)

 

Task 4. Arabian Nights Study Guide

WORLD LITERATURE I

 

TASK 4. Read through the Arabian Nights Study Guide.  This will give you background information on the Muslim world of the Arabian Nights and the frame stories.

 

Option: You may choose to watch the Nights Video instead. It contains the same information. 
https://www.learner.org/series/invitation-to-world-literature/the-thousand-and-one-nights/ (Links to an external site.)

 

Task Four:  Arabian Nights Study Guide

 

By Diane Thompson, NVCC, ELI

 

THE WORLD OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS

 

The stories come from India, Persia and Arabia; there are even stories from China, such as Aladdin, in some editions. These stories all reflect the enormous, highly civilized Islamic world of the ninth to thirteenth centuries. It stretched from Spain across North Africa to Cairo, across the Arabian peninsula, up to Damascus and Baghdad, further north to Samarkand, across what is now Afghanistan, down into India, and beyond. Many of the people in this huge area shared a religion, Islam, a religious language, the Arabic of the Koran, and many cultural elements which derived from the Koranic culture of Islam and its seventh century roots in the Arabian peninsula, now mostly Saudi Arabia.

 

A traveler could wander across this huge region speaking Arabic, sharing in a familiar culture, studying and praying in mosques, and trading with fellow Muslims. A wonderful travel book was written by Ibn Battuta in the fourteenth century recording his travels of about 77,000 miles, from Morocco across North Africa, through Arabia, up through Persia, the Steppes of Central Asia, across what is now Afghanistan, through India, perhaps up to China, and back again in many slow loops. Ibn Battuta, the Arabic Marco Polo, was able to travel all this distance almost entirely within the sphere of Islamic culture.

 

THE VARIETY OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS

 

The Arabian Nights is hugely various, like the lands it came from, and it is jam-packed with spiritual as well as earthly values. It includes information on what life is like and how to live it in a world full of tyrannical as well as good rulers, magicians and witches, good and bad jinnis (or demons), plentiful sex, lots of violence and mystical spiritual quests.

 

The Arabian Nights are not just Arabic, but Persian and Indian as well, so perhaps a better name for them is simply The Nights, one of the world’s great collections of stories. The Nights are a wonderful example of Folk literature and how it develops, through the telling and retelling of stories over a long period of time. There were many creators of these stories, many re-tellers, and many rewriters. There are, consequently, many different texts of the Nights, and stories were added to the Nights for many centuries. The stories are called the Thousand and One Nights to express the idea of a large number, not necessarily exactly 1001.

 

FRAME STORIES OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS

 

The stories in the Nights are like a complex set of interlocking arguments and examples, each fitting more or less well into its frame and doing a more or less successful job of proving its point as well as entertaining. The main frame creates the setting and motivation for all the stories contained in the Nights:

 

1. Two brother kings, Shahrayar and Shahzaman

 

1. Shahzaman is cuckolded by his wife

 

1. Shahrayar is cuckolded by his wife.

 

1. They travel until they meet the Jinni (demon) who keeps his wife locked up in a glass chest, yet she still manages to cuckold him.

 

1. They return to their kingdoms and Shahrayar has his wife killed, and vows to marry a new wife each night and kill her the next morning, so she can’t cheat on him.

 

1. Shahrazad tells her father she will marry Shahrayar.

 

1. Father tells her The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey to dissuade her. Not successful.

 

2. Father tells her The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife to dissuade her. Not successful.

 

1. Shahrazad marries Shahrayar, and arranges for her sister, Dinarzad, to ask her to tell a story to pass the night. This story, and many more, will save her and deliver the people.

 

1. Story of the Merchant and the Demon

 

1. Story of the First Old Man and the Deer

 

1. Story of the Second Old Man and Two Dogs

 

1. Story of the Third Old Man.

 

These three stories are successful and persuade the demon to release the merchant.

 

2. Story of the Fisherman. And so on until eventually the King forgives women, accepts his marriage to Shahrazad as permanent, and all live happily ever after. The stories have been successful in curing the King and saving the people.

 

TEXTS AND VERSIONS OF THE NIGHTS

 

Because the Nights developed out of an oral tradition, there are many texts and versions of the Nights available. If you wish to read more than is included in the Norton Anthology,  the best current translation is that by Haddawy, which is also published by Norton. Although the Haddawy translation includes only a small portion of the total stories sometimes found in editions of the Nights, the translation is new, attractive, has a good introduction, and avoids the ugly racism of the more standard nineteenth century Richard Burton translation. The Burton translation, although it includes many more stories, is so marred by the racial stereotyping in it, that I cannot recommend it. You may, if you wish, read one of the editions translated by Burton instead of the Haddawy version, but be warned, it is indeed racist in its negative stereotyped descriptions of black people.

 

THE ISSUE OF RACE IN THE NIGHTS

 

In the Arabic stories of the Nights, as opposed to the Burton translation, the issue of race is not that of modern racism. Although it does seem that when a woman has illicit sex, it is with a black slave, and some bad jinnis are black, there are also plenty of white slaves in the stories and jinnis come in various colors. Indeed, the mystic color symbolism of some Islamic Sufis includes Black Light as the second most sacred color, only exceeded by emerald, the color of Eternal Life.

 

Historically, there were plenty of black non-slaves who had positions of importance in the Muslim world of the Nights. Further, the children of a man and his slaves or concubines were free citizens and potential heirs, regardless of color. The son of a king and his black slave concubine could become the next king. So, although the Nights describe a world that includes slavery and some negative images about blacks, these need to be examined in the context of the Nights, not as if they were expressions of modern western values, while no such explanation is adequate for the Burton translation.

 

ROLES OF WOMEN IN THE NIGHTS

 

The roles of women in the Nights are especially interesting. On the one hand, there are many female slaves and concubines who must obey the men who own them. On the other hand, it is the courage and wit of Shahrazad that heals the King’s insane distrust of women and saves the remaining virgins of her city from being killed. There are faithful women and faithless women, magical women and silly women. Their many roles and kinds are not those of the modern western world, but they have their own strengths and weaknesses and deserve to be looked at for what they are, not simply as victims of men who control them, although that too is a factor.

 

THE POWER OF KINGS IN THE NIGHTS

 

The power of kings and other rulers in the Nights is frightening. Shahrayar is able to marry and kill a new virgin each night for as long as he pleases. As ruler, he makes the rules, and no one can oppose him and survive. There is not the least suggestion of democratic representation; this is a world where the ruler, in a sense, OWNS the land and people he rules. The king can save or kill the people, give away lands and their inhabitants, claim young women as his wives and concubines, in short, do whatever he pleases, while his subjects can either agree or keep silent.

 

THE STORY OF THE FRAME OF THE NIGHTS

 

There are two brothers, Shahrayar and Shahzaman. Shahrayar rules India and Indo-China, and he gives Samarkand to his younger brother, Shahzaman, to rule. After Shahzaman has been in Samarkand for ten years, his older brother, Shahrayar longs to see him, so he sends his Visier (his chief administrator) to his brother to ask him to come and visit.

 

The Visier travels to Samarkand to invite Shahzaman to visit his brother in India. The Visier camps with his retinue outside the city. King Shahzaman goes to the camp to visit with the Visier, BUT, unknown to his wife, the Queen, he returns to his palace in the middle of the night. Shahzaman finds his Queen in bed with the cook, and becomes so enraged that he kills them both with his sword. He says nothing of this to anyone, and leaves with the Visier to visit his brother, Shahrayar.

 

One day, while Shahrayar is out hunting, Shahzaman stays in the palace feeling very depressed about his dead wife. He looks out at the garden and sees his brother’s wife enter the garden with twenty slave girls, ten white and ten black. They undress and prove to be ten men and ten women, who proceed to have sex together, while another slave, Mas’ud, jumps down from a tree when the Queen calls to him and they have sex. Then they all re-garb as slave girls, except for Mas’ud who jumps back over the wall and is gone.

 

Shahzaman marvels that his fate is not so bad as his brother’s, and consequently he feels much better.

 

When Shahrayar returns, he notices that his brother is more cheerful and asks why. Shahzaman tells him and Shahrayar insists on seeing his Queen deceiving him. This is done and he is enraged and suggests to his brother that they leave the kingdom and seek a lover who is even MORE unfortunate than they are. Only if they find him will they return home.

 

They travel to the sea shore where they hear a great commotion. A black pillar emerges from the sea until it touches the clouds. It is a huge demon carrying a glass chest locked with four padlocks. The demon wades to shore and stops under the tree where the two brothers are hiding. He unlocks the glass chest and pulls out a beautiful woman. He places her under the tree, puts his head in her lap, and goes to sleep. The woman looks up and notices the two kings hiding in the tree. She gestures to them to come down or she will wake the demon. Then she insists they make love to her or she will wake the demon. Afterwards, she takes a ring from each brother to add to her collection of 98 rings from 98 other lovers. This shows her scorn for the demon who has not realized that he cannot control what is pre-destined, or stop a woman from satisfying her desires.

 

This is indeed worse than the two brothers’ situations, so they return to their kingdoms. Shahrayar has his Queen killed and he personally kills all his slave girls. He then swears to marry a new woman each night and have her killed the next day, so she will not be able to betray him. And this is just what he does for quite a while.

 

Shahrazad tells her father, the Vizier, that she wants to marry the king and try to save more women from being killed. Her father gets very angry and says that what happened to the donkey and the ox will happen to her. And what is that, she asks?

 

Now the Vizier tells the first sub-story of the Nights, to convince Shahrazad that she should not marry the king. This sub-story is about a donkey that persuaded an ox to stop feeding and act sick in order to avoid working. Unfortunately for the donkey, the ox’s owner, a merchant, understood animal language and tricked the donkey by making him do the ox’s work, so the donkey suffered while the ox had an easy life. This is not a very close analogy to Shahrazad’s situation, so she rejects the moral of the story and insists that she must marry the king.

 

The Visier then warns her that unless she desists from her plan, he’ll do to her what the merchant did to his wife. Shahrazad asks, what was that? This introduces the second substory. When the merchant’s wife realizes he understands animal language, she INSISTS he tell her what the donkey and the ox were saying. The merchant refuses, objecting that he will die if he tells. But, she insists and he prepares to tell her and die. However, he overhears a rooster who says that he, the merchant, is foolish because he can’t control one wife, while the rooster controls fifty wives. The rooster recommends that the merchant beat his wife until she stops trying to get him to tell her the animal language. This proves a successful ploy, and the merchant gains control of his wife and doesn’t die, because he refuses to reveal the animal language.

 

BUT, Shahrazad refuses to accept the message of this tale, because it, like the Vizier’s first tale, offers a weak analogy to her situation. She is no nagging wife to be beaten, nor is the Vizier in danger of death from her marrying the King; she is the one putting herself in danger. The Vizier’s attempts to dissuade Shahrazad by telling stories have failed, and she insists on marrying the King.

 

Shahrazad then tells her little sister, Dinarzad, that she will send for her on her wedding night and Dinarzad should then ask Shahrazad to tell a story “‘and it will cause the king to stop his practice, save myself, and deliver the people.'”

 

This is the great power of wonderful stories, when told well and for a good purpose. They will cure the King, save Shahrazad’s life, and free the kingdom from the terror of having its young women killed night after night.

 

Shahrazad duly marries the King and summons her sister to her bedchamber, where Dinarzad asks her to tell a story. This starts the series of Shahrazad’s stories, many of which include other stories within stories, like a set of interlocking puzzle boxes.

 

THE STORY OF THE FIRST NIGHT

 

The First Night is the story of the Merchant and the Demon. A traveling merchant stops to rest and eat. He tosses date pits onto the ground, washes, and says his prayers. Suddenly there appears an old demon, sword in hand, feet on the ground and head in the clouds, who says “I must kill you as you killed him,” because one of the date pits the merchant tossed away struck the demon’s son and killed him. This is the justice of the pre-Islamic law of “blood for blood,” no matter what the intentions of the people involved.

 

The Merchant replies with Muslim piety: “To God we belong and to God we return. There is no power or strength save in God the Almighty, the Magnificent. If I killed him, I did it by mistake. Please forgive me.” But the Demon is of the old school of pre-Islamic law, and replies, “By God, I must kill you, as you killed my son.” This, of course, parallels the situation of the King who is killing a woman every night to punish a woman long dead–it is punishment without determining guilt. The pious merchant pleads, but the demon insists he MUST kill him.

 

Dawn comes, and Shahrazad stops the story right in the middle, but says she’ll tell an even better story if the king lets her live until the next night. He agrees, wanting to hear the end of the story, after which he will kill her.

 

THE STORY OF THE SECOND NIGHT

 

The Demon agrees to let the merchant go home and put his affairs in order. The merchant swears to God that he will return on New Year’s Day. The demon accepts this because they both believe in the same God, even though the merchant is Muslim and the demon is from an earlier time and accepts an earlier law.

 

True to his word, the merchant puts his affairs in order and returns on New Year’s Day. As he waits for the demon to come and kill him, an old man appears with a deer on a leash, hears the merchant’s story and says he will stay until he sees the outcome.

 

Dawn comes and Shahrazad stops telling her story. The intrigued King agrees to let her live yet another day to tell the rest of it.

 

THE STORY OF THE THIRD NIGHT

 

Another old man with two black dogs arrives, hears the merchant’s story, and says he’ll stay to see the outcome.

 

THE STORY OF THE FOURTH NIGHT

 

The demon appears and the first old man asks him if he will release one third of the merchant’s guilt if the old man can tell the demon a strange and wonderful story. The demon agrees and the first old man tells his tale.

 

He had a barren wife for thirty years and then he took a mistress who bore a son. His wife was jealous and, while the man was away, turned his mistress into a cow and the son into a bull. When the man returned, he was told that his mistress had died and his son had run away.

 

On a feast day, at his wife’s insistence, the old man sacrificed the cow, although the cow wept and otherwise behaved oddly. But, it proved only skin and bones, when dead, so at his wife’s insistence, he was going to sacrifice the bull, but it threw itself at his feet and behaved pathetically.

 

THE STORY OF THE FIFTH NIGHT

 

The old man refused to kill the bull and sent him to live with a shepherd, whose daughter saw through the enchantment. She changed him back into a man after his father agreed to marry the bull/son to her. She also changed the evil wife into a pretty deer, the very deer the old man had with him on a leash.

 

The demon agrees that this is a strange and amazing tale, and grants one third of the merchant’s life. The second old man, with the two dogs, then says that his story is even more strange and amazing and the demon agrees to grant one third of the merchant’s life if the story proves to be so.

 

THE STORY OF THE SIXTH NIGHT

 

The second old man tells the story of himself and his two brothers who squandered away their wealth each time he helped them to get on their feet. Finally, they persuaded him to go on a trading voyage.

 

THE STORY OF THE SEVENTH NIGHT

 

They arrived at their destination, sold their goods at a nice profit, and the man telling the story met a girl dressed in tatters. She asked for a favor and he agreed. The favor was that he would marry her, and she added that she would reward him for his “kindness and charity.” He felt pity for her and “guided by what God the Most High had intended for me, I consented.” This displayed his virtues of trust in God and belief in Destiny or predestination, a frequent theme in the Nights.

 

On the voyage home, the two brothers became jealous and tossed him and his new wife overboard. The wife turned into a she-demon and carried him to safety on an island, saying, “Husband, I have rewarded you by saving you from drowning, for I am one of the demons who believe in God….” This is the second pious demon we have encountered in the Nights so far. She wanted to kill the evil brothers, but her husband refused, so she flew him to his home, where he found the two dogs waiting.

 

The Demon whose son was killed by the merchant’s date pit agrees that the story is indeed strange and amazing and grants another third of the man’s life to the second old man.

 

The third old man then asks if the demon will grant the last third of the merchant’s life if his story is even more strange and amazing. The story loving demon agrees again to this bargain.

 

THE STORY OF THE EIGHTH NIGHT

 

The third old man tells the story of his “mule.” When the old man had surprised his wife in bed with a slave, his wife turned him (the old man) into a dog. He ran to a butcher shop, where the butcher’s daughter recognized that he was a man in dog form. She sprinkled him with magical water and restored him to human form. The old man then asked for a bit of the magical water, which he used to turn his wife into the mule who accompanies him.

 

The demon, amazed and “swaying with delight,” grants the final third of the merchant’s life. The demon leaves and the merchant thanks the three old men and then returns home.

 

Shahrazad remarks that this story was not as strange and amazing as the story of the Fisherman, and her sister says, on cue, “Please, what story?” And Shahrazad begins a new set of stories that will continue for several nights. The king is hooked on her stories by now, and we know they will go on and on.

 

JUSTICE AND FORGIVENESS

 

This first set of stories is all about justice and forgiveness. The demon is like the king in demanding blood for blood justice, whether or not there is personal guilt involved. Shahrazad is no more responsible for what the king’s first wife did than the merchant is for innocently scattering date pits, one of which killed the demon’s son. In both cases, a new, better kind of justice must be taught. This is what the stories in the first set do–they teach justice with forbearance. Evil people are turned into deer and dogs, not killed, and the innocent merchant is set free, thanks to the care and charity of the three old men, who may well be allegories of the three revealed religions of the book, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which brought justice to the pagan world of blood guilt.

 

This world of the Nights is complex, instructive, pious at times and quite bawdy at others. Even this first small chunk of the Nights includes good and bad demons, plenty of sex, including a relationship between a demon and a human woman kept locked in a chest, instructions on how to restore a king to sanity, how to control a wife, how to keep a promise, how to tell stories to out-argue one’s father, how a woman can be brave, and so on. Not all the stories are as uplifting as this sequence, but some are even more pious, and most teach about the manners and ethics of survival in a complex, difficult world ruled by capricious tyrants, but ultimately governed by a benevolent God.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

The Thousand and One Nights. Translated by Husain Haddawy. In The Norton Anthology: World Masterpieces. Expanded edition. Volume 1. New York: Norton, 1995,   1514-1540.

Task 5. Read the selections from the Arabian Nights and Suras

TASK 5. Read the selections from the Arabian Nights and Suras (also known as Chapters) 1:  The Opening, 4:  The Women, and 5:  The Dinner Table from the Quran.  The link for the Arabian Nights is  https://www.learner.org/series/invitation-to-world-literature/the-thousand-and-one-nights/ (Links to an external site.)
and the Quran (known as Koran) http://quod.lib.umich.edu/k/koran/browse.html (Links to an external site.)

 

Writerbay.net

Do you need help with this or a different assignment? We offer CONFIDENTIAL, ORIGINAL (Turnitin/LopesWrite/SafeAssign checks), and PRIVATE services using latest (within 5 years) peer-reviewed articles. Kindly click on ORDER NOW to receive an A++ paper from our masters- and PhD writers.

Get a 15% discount on your order using the following coupon code SAVE15


Order a Similar Paper Order a Different Paper