Samhain \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Thanksgiving Moon<\/p>\n
My course on Mythology finishes week 8 Sunday with a quiz on material about Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus and Euripides’ The Bacchae. \u00a0Over Thanksgiving week we have another 250 word essay due, the final writing assignment. \u00a0I’ve chosen to answer this question: \u00a0“In tragedies, the worlds of the divine and the human often come into direct contact, but in different ways in each tragedy. Choose one tragedy and analyze how it imagines the relationship between humans and the divine.” \u00a0Just weeks 9 and 10 to go.<\/p>\n
(Caravaggio, 1595, Uffizi)<\/p>\n
Don’t know how many of the 50,000 world wide students have stuck it out, but this is a wonderful way to refresh and deepen knowledge about Roman and Greek mythology. \u00a0It has also increased my analytical skills for use in approaching any myth, which includes, of course, the Metamorphoses.<\/p>\n
In the Bacchae Sophocles approaches the story of the doubter Pentheus, king of Thebes, from the perspective of Dionysus, a god challenged. \u00a0The same incident occurs in Book 3 of the Metamorphoses and I translated it. \u00a0My main goal in all this work in the Latin is to embed the stories and the characters firmly in my mind.<\/p>\n
While reading The Bacchae, a sudden burst of insight. \u00a0Here’s the insight: \u00a0The focus of this myth is how a god demonstrates his\/her divinity when challenged. \u00a0The story of the golden calf in Genesis is a similar story. \u00a0So is the story of Adam and Eve. \u00a0Even Job.<\/p>\n
This is, if you consider it, an ur-story since at some point every god or goddess had to establish their bona fides to persons who would worship them and so people would worship them. \u00a0We tend to come at religious life after this delicate and not at all obvious in its outcome encounter has already happened. \u00a0In the Bacchae and the story of Pentheus in Ovid Pentheus gets the ultimate penalty for challenging Bacchus. \u00a0He dies, his kingdom perishes and his people go into exile. Powerful demonstration of divinity on the part of Dionysus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Samhain \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Thanksgiving Moon My course on Mythology finishes week 8 Sunday with a quiz on material about Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus and Euripides’ … Continue reading Challenge a God<\/span>