Author: j.chung1

It is pretty obvious that Hafez, unlike Rumi, reveals his passion towards ‘worldly pleasures’ while showing his religious belief in his works. I personally think that we should not just conclude that Hafez is less ascetic than Rumi because, as we discussed in class, measuring the degree of one’s asceticism is impossible and very subjective. In his poem, ‘thanks be to God,’ he appreciates God for giving him a wine shop and such pleasure. He might think that what we called ‘worldly pleasures’ are actually came from God with permission and therefore, those are allowed, necessary pleasure. We may judge Hafez’s asceticism or his religious belief solely based on human or social standards. What we see as worldly pleasures can be ascetic in God’s world. (Although Bible/Koran is words from God, we need to remember that it is written by religious leaders who, at that time, wanted to politically control and manipulate people.)

Sappho, the only female author from ancient Lesbos with written works left, uses women as the main characters of her works where as Odyssey describes a story with a man returning to his homeland after manly war in Troy. The atmosphere of Sappho’s works is relatively emotional and sentimental but gloomy while mainly depicting her feeling of rage and melancholy. On the other hand, Homer’s work is more adventurous and heroic in which Odysseus took a long journey to his land overcoming several difficulties and temptations from female characters.

More importantly, Sappho reveals her deeper inner feeling toward love by writing poem 31 which says she would feel close to death when she watched a woman, she loves, talking to other man. This poem reveals how Sappho emphasizes emotional love. However, in my opinion, Homer’s perspective of love seems relatively frivolous when Odysseus says he is still loyal to his wife after having several sexual relationship with other women. Homer believes that a man/woman can truly love someone while having physical relationship with another person that he/she does not love.

Prompt: Is Odysseus or anyone else in The Odyssey a hero? If so, what does this tell us about western ideas of heroism? Do any of these ideas remain in place today or have they changed? If so, how or how not and why or why not?

In my opinion, true hero is someone who can stand up for what is right and who can lead other into right direction even in situation where everyone else remains silence for various reasons. One of the most common reason would be security risk. Sometimes, people lose their jobs, friends and trust among others as a consequence of standing up for righteousness. In this respect, I believe Athena is a true hero in the story. She was a vehicle that enable Odysseus to escape from captivity in Ogygia and encourage Telemakhos to begin his journey to find his father and to oppose to suitors by giving them courage, advise and opportunity. Although she knew that her assistance might provoke a storm of Poseidon’s anger, she led father and son into right direction and motivated them to do the right things. However, unfortunately, there are less true hero in modern world. Fiercer competitions in this dog-eat-dog society put so much burden on individuals to survive and make people not to care about society. We are living in the world where people need only successful outcomes rather than right procedures. This is a generation that whistle blowers, who are brave enough to stand up for what is right, are blamed by majority and must be protected by the law.