Western Literature(Week 9 ) 期中考

Topic : Mid-tern


Essay


1. What role does fate play in the emotional and psychological effect of The Iliad? Why does Homer make his characters aware of their impending dooms?

     Homer’s original audience would already have been intimately familiar with the story The Iliad tells. Making his characters cognizant of their fates merely puts them on par with the epic’s audience. In deciding to make his characters knowledgeable about their own futures, he loses the effect of dramatic irony, in which the audience watches characters stumble toward ends that it alone knows in advance. But Homer doesn’t sacrifice drama; in fact, this technique renders the characters more compelling. They do not fall to ruin out of ignorance, but instead become tragic figures who go knowingly to their doom because they have no real choice. In the case of Hector and Achilles, their willing submission to a fate they recognize but cannot evade renders them not only tragic but emphatically heroic.



2. How does Homer portray the relationship between gods and men in the Odyssey? What roles do the gods play in human life? How does this portrayal differ from that found in the Iliad?

    In the Iliad, the gods relate to human beings either as external powers that influence the lives of mortals from without, as when Apollo unleashes plague upon the Achaeans, or from within, as when Aphrodite incites Helen to make love to Paris or when Athena gives Diomedes courage in battle. In the Odyssey, the gods are often much less grand. They function more as spiritual guides and supporters for their human subjects, sometimes assuming mortal disguises in order to do so. The actions of the gods sometimes remain otherworldly, as when Poseidon decides to wreck the ship of the Phaeacians, but generally they grant direct aid to particular individuals. In a sense, the change in the behavior of the gods is wholly appropriate to the shift in focus between the two epics. The Iliad depicts a violent and glorious war, and the gods act as frighteningly powerful, supernatural forces. The Odyssey, in contrast, chronicles a long journey, and the gods frequently act to guide and advise the wandering hero.

3. To what extent is the Aeneid a political poem? Is it propaganda?

    The Aeneid’s main purpose is to create a myth of origins that consolidates Rome’s historical and cultural identity. This search for origins of a race or culture is a political endeavor, in that it seeks to justify the Roman Empire’s existence and to glorify the empire through the poem’s greatness. Yet the Aeneid is also an artistic endeavor, and therefore to dismiss the poem as mere propaganda is to ignore its obvious artistic merit.

In many of the passages referring explicitly to the emperor Augustus—in Anchises’s presentation of the future of Rome, for example—Virgil’s language suggests an honest and heartfelt appreciation of Augustus’s greatness. It is worth noting, however, that in addition to being the emperor, Augustus was also Virgil’s patron. It would thus have been impossible for Virgil to criticize him outright in his work. One can argue that Virgil may not have truly believed in Augustus’s greatness and that the impossibility of explicit criticism forced him to resort to subtle irony in order to air any grievances regarding Augustus’s policies or ideology.

Western Literature(Week 8 ) 單字筆記

Topic : The Aeneid


1.propaganda (n.)
/prɑpəˋgændə/
information or ideas that are spread by an organized group or government to influence people’s opinions, esp. by not giving all the facts or by secretly emphasizing only one way of looking at the facts

2.exile (v.)
/ˋɛksaɪl/
to send or keep someone away from his or her own country or home, esp. for political reasons

3.ripe (adj.)
/raɪp/
A ripe old age is a very old age

My grandmother lived to the ripe old age of 95.

4.torture (v.)
/ˋtɔrtʃɚ/
an injury or severe mental pain

All drivers suffer the tortures of traffic and bad weather.

5.suitor (n.)
/ˋsutɚ/
a man who wants a particular woman to agree to marry him

Western Literature(Week 8 ) 上課筆記

Topic : The Aeneid


1. movie : The Odyssey

2.  Textbook

(1)Nymph 在森林水邊遊走的女神

(2)The kingdom of the Dead 冥府

(3)Virgil →literature epic ; Odyssey → oral epic

(4)Dido (Queen of Carthage) 

     Dido was, according to ancient Greek and Roman sources, the founder and first Queen of Carthage. She is best known from the account given by the Roman poet Virgil in his Aeneid. In some sources she is also known as Elissa.

(5)書名要underline!

(6)Ithaca

    Modern Ithaca is generally identified with Homer's Ithaca, the home of Odysseus, whose delayed return to the island is one of the elements of the Odyssey's plot.

(7)Oresteia
a. The Murder Of Agamemnon

(8)Athena → sparkling eyed

    Polyphemus → one eye god

    sea god → the earthquake god

    Athena → bright-eyed goddess

    Menelaus → the red-haired king

(9)Inferno

a. Inferno(Dante)

    Inferno is the first part of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. It is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil.

b.Inferno (Dan Brown)

(10)Persephone
    In Greek mythology, Persephone, also called Kore , is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest-goddess Demeter, and queen of the underworld.

Western Literature(Week ７ ) 單字筆記

Topic : Virgil, The Aeneid

1.flashback (n.)
[ˋflæʃ͵bæk]
a memory, or a short part of a movie, story, or play describing past events

This party is like a ’70s flashback.

2.metaphor (n.)
/ˋmɛtəfɚ/
an expression, often found in literature, that describes a person or object by referring to something that is considered to have similar characteristics to that person or object

The mind is an ocean' and 'the city is a jungle' are both metaphors.

3.pyre (n.)
/ˋpaɪr]/
a large pile of wood on which a dead body is burned in some parts of the world

A traditional Hindu custom used to involve widows burning themselves alive on their husbands' funeral pyres.

4.Pyrex (n.)
/ˋpaɪrɛks/
a type of glass that is used to make containers for cooking because it does not break when it is heated

5.foreshadow (v.)
/forˋʃædo/
to act as a warning or sign of a future event

The recent outbreak of violence was foreshadowed by isolated incidents in the cityearlier this year.

Western Literature(Week 7 ) 上課筆記

Topic : Virgil, The Aeneid

1. Textbook

(1)Achilles → strong, swift , and godlike (p.199)

(2)Priam → old and godlike (p.200 )
(3)Hector's wife → Andromache

(4)Hector's mother →  Hecuba

(5)期中考解釋名詞

a. in medias res

    in medias res is the literary and artisticnarrative technique of relating a story from the midpoint, rather than the beginning . In an in medias res narrative, the story opens with dramatic action rather than exposition setting up the characters and situation.

    In medias res often, though not always, entails subsequent use of flashback and nonlinear narrative for exposition of earlier events in order to fill in the backstory. For example, in Homer's Odyssey.

b. homeric epithet
    Usually called an epithet or an Homeric epithet, but sometimes called an Homeric epitaph, it is one of the most noticeable features of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. It is a tag or nickname that can be used on its own or together with the real name, depending on other features of the Greek language.

ex. swift footed → Achilles

c. homeric simile
    Homeric simile, also called an epic simile is a detailed comparison in the form of a simile that is many lines in length. The word "Homeric" is based on the Greek author, Homer, who composed the two famous Greek epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey.

d. evocation
    Evocation is the act of calling or summoning a spirit, demon, god or other supernatural agent, in the Western mystery tradition.

e. flashback
    Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached.Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story's primary sequence of events to fill in crucial backstory.

(6)My love is Like a Red , Red Rose !

                                     by Robert Burns

My love is like a red red rose

That’s newly sprung in June;

My love is like the melodie

That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in love am I;

And I will love thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:

And I will love thee still, my dear,

While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only love

And fare thee weel, a while!

And I will come again, my love,

Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.

(7) Conflicts

(8) River Styx

     River Styx Cheron

(9) Penelope

    In Homer's Odyssey, Penelope is the faithful wife ofOdysseus, who keeps her suitors at bay in his long absence and is eventually reunited with him.


a. Penelope and the Suitors

Western Literature(Week 6 ) 單字筆記

Topic : The Odyssey

 — end
 — en
1. depend (v.)

/dɪˋpɛnd/to be influenced or determined by something else
All of this depends on how the test is constructed.
2. soften (v.)

/ˋsɔfn/

to become gentle, or to make something less forceful or loud

He made an effort to soften his tone.
3.glisten (v.)

 /ˋglɪsn/ 

to shine brightly

His eyes glistened with tears.

4. listen (v.)
/ˋlɪsn/
to give attention to something you can hear or to a person who is speaking

Can you really listen to music while you do your homework?

5.raven
/ˋrævn/
a large, black bird that is bigger than a crow

Western Literature(Week 6 ) 上課筆記

Topic : The Odyssey

1. Before the formal class

(1)midtern
a. mutiple choice
b. table of god
c. term of nation
d. ID
e. essay

2. homeric epithet
    Usually called an epithet or an Homeric epithet, but sometimes called an Homeric epitaph, it is one of the most noticeable features of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. It is a tag or nickname that can be used on its own or together with the real name, depending on other features of the Greek language.

ex. swift footed  → Achilles

3.Textbook

(1)希臘軍隊 Argives = Achaeans
(2) dear friends = Patroclus (p.196)

(3) Peleus' son = Achilles

     mortal = Priam (p.197)

(4)North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO )

(5) your father = Peleus 

     The god of War = Marks

     the only one = Hector (P.199)

3.After class ...

1. blog
2.The immortals (眾神表)