Throughout the course, something that caught my attention was the way the authors of these poems and epics depict gods in their pieces. It seems as if they portray them as being perfect figures who can do no wrong. There is a double standard in their work because these gods and goddesses could get away with their wrong doings but men are looked down upon for these similar deeds. A perfect example of this would be in the epic The Odyssey. There are multiple situations where the divine figure was not punished or shamed for doing what they did while the mortals were punished severely.

In the text towards the end of the epic, Odysseus who is considered to be a brave and a heroic king finally returns home to his wife and son after struggling to return home from the War of Troy. What awaits him back in Ithaca is a group of suitors who doubts his return, plots to killing his son and to take his wife Penelope’s hand in marriage. When Odysseus reaches home, he kills all the suitors and with that the suitor’s family tries to seek for revenge on Odysseus but Athena, the god of wisdom stops them and forces them to go home. Because Odysseus is part god himself, it seems as if he is highly regarded by the gods like Athena and Zeus and is given the characteristic that he could do no wrong and should receive help from the gods. Why is it that Odysseus could kill a group of people and get away with it but when their family goes to avenge them, they’re told in a sense that they are not allowed to and are forced away?

Does the Author of this epic and other epics we’ve gone through in class put gods or god like figures up on a pedestal where it seems like they could do no wrong?

Heroism

Throughout the course of the semester, we have encounter different epics and poems with similar themes such as Heroism. The Epic of Gilgamesh and Beowulf both bring into perspective the role of a heroic figure and the deeds that articulate and illustrate the heroic code. Despite being written centuries apart from one another, coming from different cultures and written in different style of writing, both of these literature pieces possess many similar heroic characteristics. Some of us may be wondering, how is Heroism described in these pieces of literature? What did Heroism mean to these different cultures? How does literature express the significance of Heroism?

In both texts Heroism is described as strength, courage and loyalty. Gilgamesh was known as the best of all ancient Mesopotamian heroes. He was the King of Uruk, represented as a brave and courageous warrior. Although Gilgamesh had a partner, one who acted as his voice of reasoning and although Gilgamesh went on into battle with all armors and weapons, he is still consider one of the best heroes. On the other hand, Beowulf is described as a perfect hero, someone who fought for his people and eliminated evil with his abilities to bring peace and justice. Beowulf always chose to fight without any weapons and only use his strength. Beowulf and Gilgamesh were remembered as glorious heroes. They both did great and daring things to achieve this. They were both in a position of high honor and power . Also, both heroes had won their battles in heroic and memorable ways. Gilgamesh and Beowulf are example of the significance of heroism expressed to literature and how that significance is still relevant today. They both reflect the expected characteristics of a good ruler. Do these characters mirror your perspective on how a heroic figure is? If not, how do they differ from your perspective?

Something that has really stuck out to me in this text so far are how important living in a “gray area” is and what that means about a person’s life. When Dante and Virgil enter the outer courts of hell, they discover two different groups who are suffering horribly. The first group is labeled as “The Opportunists”. While living, they weren’t good or evil, but they just lived for their own gain. Along with them were those who didn’t choose a side in the rebellion of the angels. The second group contained people who are “nearly soulless”. They were neither blamed or praised for anything.

They’re described as having no hope. They envy everyone else and pursue things that aren’t within their grasp. I think the author is making a bold statement about people who live their lives not fighting for anything. They don’t belong to anywhere, so they’re just wasted space. The author could also be saying that it’s best to choose a side because you’ll later regret it and it will torment you.

When a person chooses not to fight for anything, it doesn’t matter if he increases his knowledge or not. It doesn’t matter to him how other people see him because he probably feels he doesn’t need them. So choosing something to fight for ultimately mean becoming a better, more intelligent and thoughtful person. And, maybe, according to the author, that’s what this world needs.

Do you think the author is trying to get a message across about people who don’t fight for anything? If so, does his execution seem successful in doing so?

Creation mixed with Knowledge

In Genesis, God created good and evil but how did he know what he was doing was the right thing? I question how God knew all the answers, especially the needs and wants in life. The themes I noticed are creation and knowledge. We only read that God and only he were making decisions that didn’t require anyone’s help. As I read on what God can do, I can’t help to think how he receives knowledge of what the world needs and what people want. How does he know from right vs. wrong? Having power isn’t nearly important as choosing what to do with it. God chose to create and part of creating something, there is something to be learned.

A particular creation I want to discuss is the tree of knowledge which I believe that was God’s way of testing Adam and Eve if they would listen to what he instructed not to do. The tree was God’s way of teaching without revealing the answer. In this situation, Adam and Eve learned to make a choice; it was up to them if it was going to be a good or bad choice. The theme knowledge just merges itself in the story. When I think of knowledge I view it as a learning experience, one is being taught from another and knowing what is true and false. The only information Adam and Eve received about the tree was from God so why wouldn’t they believe him? However, knowing what they know they chose to pick a different route, but they pick a choice that they liked better. Knowledge is based on facts which Eve trusted the snake more than God, her creator. By disobeying God, knowledge would be Adam and Eve’s experience. God wanted people including Adam and Eve to know about evil but not experience it to know it.

What if we all had one leader/one voice, would we listen to everything they said just because they sound like they know what they are talking about?

The poet titled the greatest of his works simply Commedia, aligning it with the classical, Aristotelian notion that comedy is concerned with the restoration of order. The root of disorder in Dante’s mind was mankind’s increasing distance from God, beginning with the fall from grace in Eden and perpetuated by the spiritual disillusion that overwhelms the pilgrim in the forest. From Dante’s point of view, any reunion of humanity with God must necessarily begin with his own understanding of divine intent, particularly the concepts of justice, charity, and salvation.

From The Norton Anthology of World Literature

Sandro Botticelli’s Map of Hell (1480-90)

(Close up of 8th circle)

Sandro Botticelli’s depiction of Dante’s Inferno

Dante’s Commedia

• it is a work of Italian medieval literature, named the Divine Commedia by another Italian poet, Boccaccio, to emphasize the subject matter of the work, the realms of the afterlife: hell, purgatory and paradise, but also to signal the elevated style in which it is written.
• Dante claims God has inspired his testament, and so the early commentators take the visionary experience of the poet at face value.
• the three realms of the Commedia‘s three parts are as follows: down in the depths of Hell in the Inferno, up the mountain of Purgatory in the Purgatorio, and through the ever-higher spheres of Heaven in the Paradiso.
• “the Commedia is made up of one hundred chapters that Dante calls cantos (literally, “songs”), divided into three groups of thirty-three; the extra is added to the Inferno, which opens with an introductory canto. The numerological structure of the poem is also revealed in the landscape of each part. Hell is divided into nine circles, each containing a different category of sinners receiving their own proper form of punishment” (taken from the Norton edition).
• the Roman poet Virgil is the pilgrim’s guide, as well as the poet’s, because of his Aeneid.
• in keeping with Christian doctrine, the souls in the underworld (of the Inferno) have no material bodies, yet their shades retain the appearance of the bodies they had while alive; the punishments they suffer in Hell leave marks on their immaterial flesh.

William Blake’s The Vestibule of Hell and the Souls Mustering to Cross the Acheron (1847)

Salvador Dalí’s paintings of Dante’s Inferno

Canto I in Italian

Norton’s Map of the Inferno

Spendthrifts running through the wood of the suicides (1855-61)

by Gustave Doré

See more images here.

What make a strong leader?

In Beowulf, we follow Beowulf’s journey from a youthful warrior and transitioning into a wise aged ruler. Beowulf rise to power begins with the defeat of Grendel and his mother in his youth and becomes king later in his life. In Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Oedipus becomes ruler of his land by answering the riddle of the Sphinx. We read how by performing great feats sets them apart from the commoners but how do both characters stack up against each other?

Beowulf, in his old age leads the charge against the mighty dragon knowing that the battle may be his last rather than assembling an army. Oedipus offers amnesty to the person who reveal who murdered Laius. In the end, Oedipus gorges his eyes out and exiles himself after finding out he was the murder. Both rulers shown that they are willing to put themselves in front of others. What makes a good ruler? Would you put your life in the line against a monster like Beowulf or exile yourself if you slept with your mother and killed your father like Oedipus? Does a leader run away from conflict like Oedipus or fight to the very end like Beowulf?

How does one leave their land towards the end? Beowulf died, and with all but one of his eleven men following him into battle against the dragon shows that Geatland will soon fall to outside threats. Who would want to marry Oedipus’ offsprings knowing that they came from an incestuous marriage? The lineage of Oedipus and Beowulf reign are gone; Beowulf never got married and this never had any offsprings of his own and everyone knows Oedipus’ secret. What happens next? Both rulers meet their downfall, one heroic and the other tragic.

The story of Beowulf begins and ends with the death of a person, the previous ruler ending like it began, drifting away on the water being remembered as “That was a good king” and Beowulf comes out seeking for fame and eventually becoming a leader being remember as:

They said that of all the kings upon the earth,

he was the m ost gracious and fair-minded,

kindest to his people and keenest to win fame. (lines 3180-83)

Is that how we would like to be remembered?

Creation is important in every society and group of people.  Whether that be the creation of new life, new ideas, or new inventions.  Creation pushes us forward as human beings and creates an atmosphere of learning, knowledge, and exploration.  I believe, after a lot of thought and discussion in class, that the creation story was made to push the boundaries of understanding and unite people as a whole.

Where am I from?  This question was probably asked over and over in the years BCE.  Modern science had not yet been developed however people were curious and with curiosity a solution had to be made.  Not to just come up with a solution but to come up with an understanding of the world that they (the people back then) were surrounded in.  Stories were made up of creation and as a result it eased the peoples thoughts and worries.

These stories united people because it gave them an understanding of where and whom they descended from.  With this understanding it eased fears and it allowed the people to happily go upon their lives, not having to worry about their existence into this world.

Today, ideas/ theories are up in the air about our existence.  There are many, however the most believed is the theory of evolution.  This is where the human being, as we know it today, developed from chimpanzees/ monkey variations.  These pre humans were able to compete, survive and thrive among all other organisms on Earth and, as a result became dominant in the world.

Bottom Line-  to where we were truly created is up to the individual person and what conclusions they make.  It has not yet been 100% proven (theory of evolution) and it probably never will be, so on that note, Hesiod and Genesis still have a place in the modern time and will be known as the true creation stories in English Literature.

Curiosity

The play Oedipus the King by Sophocles often shows that Oedipus is a curious individual. Oedipus tragic flaw would be his curiosity and his issue of trust. Although what really led Oedipus to his downfall at the end of the play was his curious nature. His curious nature blinded him to even consider what the truth may hold or if the truth may be too much for him to consume. As a result Oedipus went from a powerful ruler at the beginning of the play to a pitiful son of Laius at the end. Throughout the play there was many scenarios where he was warned to stop asking questions and trying to find out what had happened to Laius by Tiresias, the shepherd, and Jocasta. A scenario that showed his curious nature can be seen in the following lines when Oedipus is conversing with Jocasta.

Jocasta: Take my advice, I beg you –- do not go on with it.

Oedipus: Nothing will move me. I will find out the whole truth.

Jocasta: It is good advice I am giving you — I am thinking of you.

Oedipus: That “good advice” of yours is trying my patience.

Jocasta: Ill-fated man. May you never find out who you are!

From Jocaste line “Ill-fated man” does this subject to her knowing who Oedipus is or is it a foreshadowing that Oedipus curiosity will lead to him being a tragic hero at the end of the play. Based off of what you read in Oedipus the King was Oedipus downfall his curiosity? Was curiosity what led to ruin him at the end of the play where he used a pin stab his own eyes? If Oedipus didn’t have a curious nature would the ending of the play be different or would it be the same based off of Apollo prophecy for Thebes.

I would like to take us back to the first full week of classes. After reading sections of the Genesis and discussing the idea of creation theory, we had seemed to be split on the idea that God knew exactly what the subsequent events of his actions would be. Some of the class believed that Adam and Eve had a choice in regards to eating from the tree of knowledge, and some of us disagreed. The idea that free will may or may not be prevalent when there is a God was where the discussion ended. I’m going to bring forth reasons according to scientific theories and experiments, that the concept of free will is, in fact, an illusion.

To have free will means that your choices are the sole determinant of your actions. If what you do is caused by any factors or forces above and beyond your choices, then you do not act freely but rather act under the influence of something other than your own will.

“It might seem that whether or not we have free will depends on whether or not our world is deterministic.”

According to determinism, there are two forms called physical and theological determinism. Science shows us that results happen due to laws of physics, chemistry, biology, etc. Religion then tells us events happen according to some higher power. In both cases, things would appear as an outcome of a chain reaction or domino effect.

The neurologist Benjamin Libet, conducted an experiment back in the 80’s that casts doubt on the idea of free will. In the lab, he wired up subjects to an EEG machine which measures brain activity and then asked them to choose a simple hand movement when they felt like it. He got them to record the time at which they consciously decided to move their hands. The results showed that there was a significant time between when the person consciously decided to move and when brain activity connected with movement actually started triggering. This experiment has been repeated ever more frequently and with better results each time in favor that our subconscious is in control.

If our world is deterministic, then everything that happens would be a direct result of preceding events. If God is the creator of our world and God is also omnipotent and designed everything with intent, wouldn’t our world then be deterministic?

Beowulf is a pagan epic poem passed down orally from the southern Swedes to the English in the 5^th century when the Anglo-Saxons and Jutes invaded Britain. Its Christian allusions were added when it was written down sometime between the 8^th and 10^th centuries.

Beowulf Manuscript (c. 1000)

The poem’s written text:

• Two scribes, A and B, working around the year 1000 CE transcribed the poem. They weren’t considered poets, but rather editors.
• The only manuscript survived a fire in 1731 and came to us as the text we have now.

The Beowulf-poet:

• The term “author” does not convey the same static quality in the Anglo-Saxon period as it does in the modern day. Beowulf could have existed in multiple versions, depending on how many Anglo-Saxon poets, scops (pronounced “shops” and related to the word “to shape”) were around to interpret and retell the tale, much like the many interpretations of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
• Every performance and reading reshapes the poem and how we approach it, even the modern day versions. The Beowulf-poet, in a sense, is more of a collective noun than an individual author.
• The poet takes poetic license (his own embellishments) with Beowulf’s character, and invites the audience to consider the complex role of oral poetry, and how the audience—both Anglo-Saxon and modern—should interpret this work. He uses terms such as “I heard” or “I have learned” to separate himself from the narrative.

The poem’s hero:

• Beowulf is mortal, but like other epic heroes (Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Achilles) he is stronger and more brave than most men. The last line of the poem tells us that “Beowulf was keenest to win fame.” Immortality in this culture means to win fame in stories and reputation.
• Beowulf fights monsters, as Gilgamesh fights Humbaba and Odysseus fights the Cyclopes, and we may glean the values of a Germanic leader, its culture, through its hero. Tacitus (56-120 CE) claims that warfare is a standard way of life for the Germanic people to survive and prosper. For example, a good king is a “ring-giver.”

Characteristics of the poem:

• It has Christian elements: Grendel is a descendant of Cain, the flood story is inscribed on the sword that Beowulf uses to kill Grendel’s mother, and in the mead hall the scop sings a song that recounts a creation story similar to the one in Genesis.
• J. R. R. Tolkien’s reading: the troll, the sea-woman, the dragon are from Norse and Germanic mythology—they represent coldness, darkness, wilderness, and are enemies of human values and reflections. The mead hall is a circle of light, which ultimately calls Grendel into existence. Tolkien’s criticism of the poem treats it as a poem, not as a historical document or an ethnographic study of the Germanic people.
• The poem begins with a funeral and ends with a funeral—nothing lasts.
• The three fights only take up 500 out of 3200 lines, and so community is more the driving point of the epic—it begins with Shield Sheafson. At the end of the epic, we know the Geats will eventually disappear because they fail to help Beowulf against the dragon.
• The poem contains understatements, such as “he’s feeling no pain” when someone is drunk; instead of saying “I’m happy,” they say “I wouldn’t want you to think that I’m not happy;” and “that was no good place” insinuates part of the darkness and vision of these people.

Beowulf read in Old English

From J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics”

It is just because the main foes in Beowulf are inhuman that the story is larger and more significant than this imaginary poem of a great king’s fall. It glimpses the cosmic and moves with the thought of all men concerning the fate of human life and efforts; it stands amid but above the petty wars of princes, and surpasses the dates and limits of historical periods, however important. At the beginning, and during its process, and most of all at the end, we look down as if from a visionary height upon the house of man in the valley of the world. A light starts—lixte se leoma ofer landa fela [“its gold-hammered roofs shone over the land”]—and there is a sound of music; but the outer darkness and its hostile offspring lie ever in wait for the torches to fail and the voices to cease. Grendel is maddened by the sound of harps.