The ancient Athenian Greek era was a time where democracy and order were highly praised and venerated by the upper echelons of society. The court and government ruling was a concept that the Athenians took much pride in. Also, during that time drama and entertainment was the order of the day. Athenians seemed to decompress from their daily hectic lives by attending dramatic and fantasy based plays. One of the most respected writers of ancient Greece was Sophocles.
From this poem we can learn Sappho’s views on ageing, as well as the tension with this subject within the culture of those of her time period. For instance, the speaker acknowledges the terrifying prospect of ageing, but also that
Hubris: the tragic flaw of arrogance and pride, often leading to the downfall of characters. Rulers often fall victim to the temptation of power and egotism because of their authority. In Sophocles’ plays Oedipus Rex and Antigone, kings Oedipus and Creon, respectively, are characterized by the tragic flaw of hubris because of their inability to overlook their pride for the better of the people. Oedipus and Creon prioritized their desires over the Theban people for selfish and prideful reasons, leading to the suffering of their subjects. Sophocles, in his Theban Plays trilogy, illustrates the repercussions of hubristic rulers through paralleled scenes in which Creon replicates previously made mistakes by Oedipus.
Desire is a consuming force that causes the body to act without consulting the mind. Anne Carson’s translation of Sappho’s fragments in, If Not Winter, creates experiences in which, eros produces a gap between the subject and the desired object. With the use of vivid imagery and overt symbolism within fragment 105A, Sappho allows her readers to experience the uncontrollable forces of desire and attraction which govern a person who is in love; even if such feelings are irrational. This ultimately creates a tangible distance between the subject and the object she desires. In this paper, I will argue that longing after an unattainable person becomes so consuming that it eventually produces madness within the desiring individual.
Socrates and Pericles had extremely differing views about Athenian life. Pericles was a Politician, whereas Socrates was a philosopher. In “The Funeral Oration of Pericles”, Pericles contradicts himself a lot. While in “The Apology of Socrates”, Socrates does not go back on what he said in the past. He stands by everything he has said.
Pressley Bowers Mrs. Cain ELA 10H February 3, 2023 Abstract Sophocles often uses his work show his beliefs and ideas during a time where that may have not been as excepted. He shows his personal views, the laws of the government during this time, and also uses emotional ways to connect his reader to his writings. In Antigone he shows the importance of having your own views, and how you should never let one change your mind.
The language in Plato’s symposium and the expression of Sappho’s poetry are similar in that they both deal with homoerotic love. Sappho, the only ancient Greek female author whose work survived, talks from the female point of observation, where as Plato’s work concentrates on the idea of love among males. In spite of the fact that both of their points of view are comparative in courses, for example, their thoughts of physical fascination and want, Plato’s work creates a better understanding of the nature of love then Sappho’s ideas. This understanding will be shown with three arguments and counter- arguments in order to demonstrate the dominance of Plato over Sappho. It will than be concluded with an overview of the main idea and a recap of the three arguments made for Plato.
When looking at the similarities, the reader sees several. First, a similarity between the two works is that the couples in each story are forbidden to be married. “Pyramus and Thisbe” demonstrates, “They would gladly have married, but their parents forbade.” A Midsummer Night’s Dream also shows, “As she is mine, I may dispose of her, Which shall be either to
His past experiences has led him to believe that love should be masked by lies that in a sense it should the truth should be a voluntary definition behind love. In Plato’s Symposium, Aristophanes’ delivers a speech about his experiences of have loved or being in love. Aristophanes’ speech captures how powerful the feeling of love, that since birth love has condition our lives involuntary and will remain so. Love to Aristophanes’ is a form of completion that a lucky couple receives once the meet each other. This completion is empowered by an enormous amount of love, intimacy, and affection that neither bonds can be separated.
All of the speakers speeches about love in the Symposium are important because they each have a unique idea to contribute about what is love and the idea of love. One of the speakers, Pausanias goes after Phaedrus’ speech. When it is his turn to speak he present his speech about love as not a single thing and therefore we shouldn’t praise it since there is more than one. Pausanias states that there are two kinds of love, he claims that since “there are two kinds of Aphrodite, there must also be two loves” (Symposium 13). The first Aphrodite is called Uranian or Heavenly Aphrodite since she is the daughter of Uranus, she is the oldest and has no mother.
Another influential factor expressed in Sappho’s writing was her sexuality. Disregarding the fact that she was married to a man for a brief period of time, Sappho found a great interest in women (Poetry Foundation). As an illustration, the poem “In My Eyes He Matches the Gods” is enthusiastic towards Sappho’s sexuality. This poem is about a women Sappho sees sitting across the room and with a man. Sappho is envious of said man and states it does not matter who the man is with this women, any guy would be like the gods getting to be with her, hence the name of the poem.
Similarly both works expresses a fervent desire towards someone. In Sappho’s fragment 130 we see can see love and desire has took a hold on Sappho. A feeling that can be described as either pleasant or even painful yet she has a hard time fighting off the overcoming feeling. What’s interesting is
Introduction The purpose of this essay is to investigate the women’s role in Classical Greece society and literature (5th/4th century b.C.). Therefore, I decided to discuss and analyse one of the most controversial comedies of that time, “Lysistrata” by Aristophanes. This text shows how women, sick of their submissive and powerless position in the political scenario of Athens and Sparta, come on the scene and, through a smart stratagem, achieve their expected result.
Despite popular opinion, love at first sight does not exist. The idea of “love” is widely misinterpreted as a mere attraction between two individuals. However, many do not understand that love goes much further than this, and what follows is a common misconception between love and lust. Shakespeare in his 17th century play Twelfth Night delves deeper into this idea of love. He presents the character Duke Orsino who appear to be infatuated and love-sick for the Countess Olivia, a woman with which he knows little about.
The first instance which supports the notion that a lapse of communication is responsible for the unsuccessful nature of heterosexual relationships is the case of Duke Orsino and Countess Olivia’s relationship. Both start the play preoccupied with their own concerns, Orsino is worried about finding love, specifically with Olivia, meanwhile she is busy mourning the death of her brother by refusing to marry anyone for seven years. However, it is Orsino’s obsession with seeking love and how he goes about pursuing Olivia that best exemplifies the problematic nature of a male and female’s relationship. Orsino opened the play by saying of love, “Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, / The appetite may sicken and so die” (1.1.1-3), essentially saying that he so badly craves the feeling being in love gives him, that he would like in so great a quantity that it would end his life.
