Influence Of Mythology On Literature And Society Anthony Roldan P3 3-282 1/4/01 The Influence of Mythology on Literature and Society Part One: Edith Hamilton is the author of the book Mythology. This book is about the Mythology of the Romans and Greeks through her eyes and the way she interprets it. In the beginning of the book Hamilton writes an introduction to Classical Mythology and how, and why it came about.
She starts off by writing that Greek and Roman Mythology is meant to show us how people felt about the human race and about where they came from many years ago. She points out that Mythology describes the Earth when it was young and people cared for the Earth more than today.This is true, because in today's world not many people are caring about the Earth and its going by us fast. She also points out that these stories in Mythology and the characters are describe in such great detail that even through you cannot see them, that maybe just maybe they are real and believable. Mythology is the way the Greeks and Roman saw and understood the world around them and it is written in which a way that we may never truly understand it. Hamilton now describes the Mythology of the Greeks as a totally different picture than the one described in Classical Mythology.
She describes it as being vile, and savage, but the reason for this is because the Greeks wrote about themselves when they had a brutal and poverty filled life. They wrote like this to show you how they came to power and what they went through to get there.Not only was Greece coming to power, but also they changed the world as it was back then and forever. The reason for this was, because when Greece came to power so did mankind, and because they finally saw how powerful they could be, mankind was born. Greek originally obtained their gods from the Egyptians when they traveled into Egypt and saw the statues of their gods.
The Greeks then took the same idea and changed its meaning around. An example would be how the Egyptian god's have different body parts with other bodies and the Greek gods are humans.Hamilton states that the Egyptians made gods they thought up and made them in a way that no one has seen before. The Greeks therefore made their gods in there own image.
That made it easier for them to understand them and know how they act. The major point Hamilton is showing in this introduction is that Mythology is a new to look at life and to understand it under a different light. Another point she states is that Greek Mythology it's self, is so unique that it showed extreme beauty yet fear at that same time. The gods were not to be completely feared, but respected to the point where you didn't anger them.
Greek Mythology is also unique, because it doesn't have many of the things that are in most religion or folklore. Hamilton states that Greek Mythology didn't contain Magic or Witches, and in reality didn't fear the dead, they actually pitied the dead. Hamilton's main point in this whole introduction is that Mythology itself is completely and totally different from any other religion or folklore ever.Mythology was written in such a beautiful way that upon reading it, it seems real and it begins to take shape. She is also saying that Greek Mythology was in a way different than normal Mythology and therefore changed the face of Mythology forever. PART TWO: Aside from mortals and immortals in Mythology there were many heroes in it as well.
There are heroes such as the well-known Hercules and Hermes and Apollo, but there are many not as famous. Two examples of these are Prometheus and Io.Prometheus is a god who was the first to introduce fire to mankind. Zeus was very anger when he first learned of this and punished Prometheus for what he had done. Many other gods accommodated Prometheus for his courage to go against Zeus and do something that was right. Zeus sent Prometheus to the rock peak of Caucasus where he had to stay there till Zeus ordered him back down, but during this time other gods called him daring and enduring.
Upon first going to the rock peak he had a strange visitor. The visitor took shape of a heifer, at that Prometheus knew who she was. She was Io, a young princess who Zeus fell in love with, but hid her due to his jealous wife, Hera.One day Zeus was with Io and covered the earth with a huge cloud to hide Io from Hera, but Hera was smart and went down to earth and ordered the cloud to be moved. After that happened Hera saw Zeus with Io, but Zeus had changed Io into a heifer so Hera wouldn't know it was Io.
Hera was smarter than Zeus though and made Zeus give Io to her. Hera then made Io walk the earth as a heifer for the rest of her life. As Prometheus was sitting upon his new rock peak Io was telling him her story. Prometheus had no answers to give to Io, but had some small advice.He could only tell her in what direction to go, which was along the shore of the sea named Ionian after Io.
The Prometheus told her to travel to the Nile where Zeus would find her, change her back to normal, and give her a child named Epaphus, and is a descendent of Hercules. Whom Prometheus would owe his freedom to. I understood in this story that two who are in need of something can help each get what they want. This is want exactly happened in this story, Prometheus told Io where to get help and that help which Io would get helps Prometheus become free.
This relationship is Mutualism and both Io and Prometheus were heroes to each other. PART THREE: Much like most people across the world, people are proud of their heritage. Americans especially are proud of who they are and have showed it by fighting in wars, making the Declaration of Independence, and by becoming the strongest nation in the world. As Americans and most people we have many things to look back on and to be proud of that makes us who we are.
The Romans take great pride in who they are and they're past accomplishments, because they were such a powerful nation.The Adventures of Aeneas is a prime example of why the Roman people are proud of who they are, the reason is that in the story the founder of Rome, Aeneas, is seen a very strong man and for that the Romans are proud. In the Adventures of Aeneas, Aeneas is the son of Venus and he was a famous hero who fought in the Trojan War. He escaped Troy with his father and his little son to Italy in search of a new home. After long traveling and adventures they finally reach Italy.
There Aeneas married the daughter to a powerful king and founded the great city of Rome. For that the Romans are extremely proud of.Aeneas was a true man and a true soldier; he showed great courage and made the Roman people proud to be Romans. Aeneas throw his journey fought many battles and was always against Juno who would constantly try to stop Aeneas from doing what he had to do at the moment. Juno played many tricks against Aeneas, but Aeneas had help from many other gods such as, Venus, Apollo, Neptune, Mercury, and Cupid. Aeneas upon reaching Italy was told in a dream that his great city would be far to west and he would need to make a long journey to get there.
On his way to the far west he was told that he would need to go the underworld in order to get a golden bough in order to see Pluto. Upon seeing Pluto he would take him ...
