Author: u.trifunovic

William Shakespeare initially introduces Othello to readers as a courageous hero of war. However, throughout the story Othello gets influenced by his and actions of others in his environment which lead to his transformation from this proud leader to a murderer. The hero’s destruction flows gradually throughout the story. It starts with his jealousy, through hitting his wife, to finally killing Desdemona. Initially presented as a hero, Othello becomes a tragic one as he allows himself to go from a character who has control over everything he does to becoming a murderer due to jealousy.

Being overly emotional, throughout his journey through hell Dante occasionally gets frightened and tired. On this exhausting journey Dante is being helped by Virgil who serves as his guide. Whenever Dante falls down Virgil is there to encourage him to keep moving through hell. Virgil’s wisdom is not the only way in which he helps Dante make it through hell as he also protects him from various demons. Generally speaking, Virgil’s role is to balance out Dante’s defects and help him accomplish his mission.

What is the role of prophecies and/or fate in The Aeneid?

Being polytheistic societies, people of both Rome and Greece have been largely influenced by gods and their actions, just as well as by prophecies and their beliefs of what their fate is and what they’re destined to accomplish in their lives. Virgil, a Roman poet, has also been influenced by all the above when he wrote “The Aeneid”. He wrote the book in such a way that stresses out the importance of prophecies and fate in it, and Virgil lets those serve reader as some sort of guide through the book. However, just as it’s the case with the main character, Aeneid, who keeps repeating how’s he doing what he’s destined to do but doesn’t specify how exactly he’s going to accomplish it, Virgil guides readers by briefly introducing what’s going to happen but without specifying how it is exactly going to happen. Overall, prophecies and fate do play an important role in “The Aeneid” but it is not necessarily the only thing that matters in the story. This is because Aeneid, although repeating that he’s doing what he’s destined to do, he’s not blindly led into his actions, he rather makes a conscious decision to follow his “destiny” and therefore does have some control over it.

Q: What is the genre of The Odyssey? Is it simply an epic poem? The first novel? A collection of myths? A fable or allegory? Or a composite genre, some combination of these?

A: If we were to look only at the way The Odyssey is written, we might say it is simply an epic poem. However, looking more thoroughly in the content of this poem, we realize there’s also a collection of myths aspect to it as much as a fable and/or allegory aspect. Reasoning behind this is Homer’s introduction of numerous Gods in the poem who represented an important part of Greek culture and mythology. The whole Odyssey’s journey is presented to the readers in a long narrative with Gods being fictional characters, which are all the reasons that qualifies the Odyssey for the first novel. With all that being said, genre that The Odyssey fits best into would be a composite genre, or some combination of everything, an epic poem, the first novel, a collection of myths, and a fable and/or allegory.