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European Classical Literature Unit 4 Classical Roman Epic/Narrative Poem
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Classical Roman Epic/Narrative Poem
EUROPEAN CLASSICAL LITERATURE
Question And Answer
1. Does the story of Pyramus and Thisbe teach a moral lesson or show the origins of good and evil? If so, how?
Ans: Ovid’s (43 BCE – 17 CE) Pyramus and Thisbe, one of his stories in the collection known as Metamorphosis may not show the origin of good and evil, but certainly exemplifies that actions have consequences. One could argue, perhaps, that the parents’ forbidding interaction between them caused their eventual deaths, and therefore their prohibition was evil; even so, the story is lacking in showing the origins of evil, or even exemplifying the good.
If there are enduring moral lessons to be had, the first is that actions and choices have consequences –the parents chose to prohibit Pyramus and Thisbe to meet; they then chose to sneak away. The assumption (or choice) by Pyramus that the bloodied cloak he discovers upon his arrival at the tomb meant that Thisbe was dead. In his grief, at that discovery, he chooses to commit suicide. Thisbe, finding the dying Pyramus, chooses to die alongside him. Choices and actions have consequences.
The second moral lesson that may be inferred is that the Universe is random — had the lioness not arrived at the tomb as Thisbe arrived, she would not have left her cloak behind, which set up the tragic cascade of events (had she not left her cloak behind, it would not have been bloodied by the lioness: had Pyramus not found the bloodied cloak, he would not have committed suicide.) It’s a bit like the sequence with the dancer being, and not being, hit by the car in the movie Benjamin Button. Events are random.
The moral lessons are enduring — as the P & T story had been remade by Shakespeare (1564-1616) in Romeo and Juliet (and then spoofed in A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and again remade, in our own time, as West Side Story. The theme of “star-cross’d” or “wall-separated” or “wrong neighbourhood” lovers sadly seems eternal.
2. Who is phaeton’s father?
Ans: This is exactly the question Phaeton asked his mother, Clymene. When his mother told him that his father was the sun god, Helios, he wanted proof. This was a reasonable request, in view of the fact that Merops was the earthly husband of Clymene. We read of this story in book 2 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
At last Phaeton got to go and see his father, and his father even allowed him to drive the sun chariot. This was to be the ultimate downfall of Phaeton. As he was riding the sun chariot, he got too close to the earth, as he could not control the horses of the chariot. For this reason he was about to burn the earth and destroy human civilization. For this reason, Jupiter killed him with a thunderbolt to contain the damage.
3. Who are Cadmus’s daughters in Metamorphoses?
Ans: The Metamorphoses mentions two of Cadmus’s daughters: Semele and Autonoe. The other daughters of Cadmus are Agave and Ino.
In Ovid’s story, Jupiter falls in love with Semele when he sees her swimming in the river. Jupiter subsequently seduces and impregnates her. Juno, Jupiter’s wife, becomes jealous when she learns this fact. As a form of revenge, Juno disguises herself as an old maid. When Juno speaks to Semele—pretending to talk about gossip—she asks Semele if the one who impregnated her Was truly Jupiter. She cautions that many men deceive virgins by pretending to be gods. In order to prove that Jupiter is indeed the father, Juno tricks Semele into summoning him.
Previously, Semele asked Jupiter for a wish, which he agreed to give. He told her she could have anything she wanted. Having been tricked by Juno putting doubts in her mind, she now wishes for Jupiter to appear before her. However, when Semele summons Jupiter, his powers of thunder and storm prove to be too savage for Semele’s mortal body, and she dies. Jupiter tries to prevent her summoning him, but he is obliged to grant her wish. Jupiter and Semele had a child, Dionysus.
4. Which part of Ovid’s metamorphoses makes the strongest political point? In your response, be sure to identify what point the author is making through the story, the consequences for the behaviour, and why you think it is more compelling than the other issues discussed in the selections.
Ans: Ovid lived in a tumultuous time at the turn of the new millennium. He saw the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Empire under Augustus (the assassinated Caesar’s adopted son and maternal grand-nephew). Scholars have gone back and forth throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century as to whether Ovid was pro-Augustan or anti-Augustan. Ovid was exiled for a period in 8 BCE, which scholars think has to do with his opposition to Augustus’s moral legislation (which promoted monogamous marriage and encouraged people to have children).
Recently, scholars have begun to understand that there is a more complex relationship between Augustus and his contemporary politics. Though the interpretations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses are at least as numerous as the stories the work includes, the episode of Apollo and Daphne is one of the more politically charged ones. Augustus has been linked with Apollo as early as the Battle of Actium. According to Paul Zanker (an authority on the age of Augustus), Augustus deliberately associated himself with the god for the social order and harmony he represented. So, in Ovid’s episode of Apollo and Daphne, which describes how the former fails to catch the object of his affection (Daphne), Ovid is perhaps commenting on the moral legislation promoted by Augustus. Ovid has Apollo use words for “marriage” (“conubia”) rather than “love.” contrary to his language in other classical sources. Daphne. the nymph who competes with Apollo in a footrace. behaves contrary to Augustus’s moral legislation by choosing perpetual virginity over marriage. This specific language, unique to Apollo’s appearance in Ovid’s text, suggests that Ovid is criticising Augustus’s moral legislation in this episode.
5. What are the cosmological insights in regard to the creation of women in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Hesiod’s Theogony?
Ans: In the Theogony, the birth of the gods, Titans, and early monsters is portrayed in sometimes cosmological terms. Chaos, for example, is the primordial being (line 116, cf. Ovid, Metam. 1.7), followed by Earth, and both of them give birth to various aspects of the cosmos: Chaos to Day, Night, and Aether; Earth to Heaven, Ocean, and then the Titans.
The creation of human beings in general, however, is not given much focus in Hesiod, and the creation of women in particular has little connection to these cosmological aspects. Instead, the creation of women is linked to the ordinary life of mortals, and not in a positive way. Woman was created purely to cause trouble to man as the price of the benefit of fire, which had been stolen and given to men by Prometheus:
Immediately, in return for the fire, [Zeus] made a thing evil for men… (line 570) /He made a beautiful evil in return for the good thing… (line 585)/ Zeus who thunders on high set women as an evil thing for mortal men… (line 600-601)
While cosmological powers are presented as feminine and give birth to gods, Titans, and all of nature, human women are not presented in a similar way: there is no discussion of human women giving birth or bringing life. Rather, they are simply portrayed as being trouble.
If we wish to give the poet the benefit of the doubt, however, and not just write him off as misogynistic, there may be a touch of satire here. The poet could be juxtaposing these views in order to critique the latter one. “How can we view women as nothing but trouble,” he might be suggesting, “when we base our view of the very origin of the cosmos itself on the distinctively female characteristic of giving birth?”
Ovid, on the other hand, connects the creation of human beings to cosmological principles. After the primordial chaos—a confusion of the four elements—is separated into its constituent parts, humans are made from a heavenly origin:
[Either] the god who made all else, designing a more perfect world, made man of his own divine substance, or…the new earth, but lately drawn away from heavenly ether, retained still some elements of its kindred sky. (1.78-81)
This heavenly source of the soul is indicated by hu-mans’ posture (which is obviously shared by men and women):
Though all other animals are prone, and fix their gaze upon the earth, he gave man an uplifted face and made him stand erect and turn his eyes to heaven. 1.84-86)
Ovid does not recount a separate creation of women: thus, all human beings are included in this noble origin. and women are defined as human in terms of that rational soul, rather than in. terms of their biological nature.
6. Which part of Ovid’s metamorphoses makes the strongest political point? In your response, be sure to identify what point the author is making through the story, the consequences for the behaviour, and why you think it is more compelling than the other issues discussed in the selections.
Ans: Ovid lived in a tumultuous time at the turn of the new millennium. He saw the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Empire under Augustus (the assassinated Caesar’s adopted son and maternal grand-nephew). Scholars have gone back and forth throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century as to whether Ovid was pro-Augustan or anti-Augustan. Ovid was exiled for a period in 8 BCE, which scholars think has to do with his opposition to Augustus’s moral legislation (which promoted monogamous marriage and encouraged people to have children).
Recently, scholars have begun to understand that there is a more complex relationship between Augustus and his contemporary politics. Though the interpretations of ON id’s Metamorphoses are at least as numerous as the stories the work includes, the episode of Apollo and Daphne is one of the more politically charged ones. Augustus has . been linked with Apollo as early as the Battle of Actium. According to Paul Zanker (an authority on the age of Augustus), Augustus deliberately associated himself with the god for the social order and harmony he represented. So, in Ovid’s episode of Apollo and Daphne, which describes how the former fails to catch the object of his affection (Daphne), Ovid is perhaps commenting on the moral legislation promoted by Augustus. Ovid has Apollo use words for “marriage” (“conubia”) rather than “love,” contrary to his language in other classical sources. Daphne, the nymph who competes with Apollo in a footrace, behaves contrary to Augustus’s moral legislation by choosing perpetual virginity over marriage. This specific language, unique to Apollo’s appearance in Ovid’s text, sug-gests that Ovid is criticising Augustus’s moral legislation in this episode.
7. What is a dominant theme in Book One of Ovid’s Metamorphoses that could be used for a presentation?
Ans: One of the themes you might wish to discuss is the utter amorality of the gods. It’s important at the outset to understand the difference between immorality and amorality. immoral actions are those that depart from an established set of norms or conventions. Amoral behaviour, on the other hand, shows a complete indifference to any system of morality whatsoever. And this is how the gods behave, which is not surprising when you consider that they can do pretty much as they please. They’re gods, so who’s going to stop them from doing what they like?
Although Ovid calls on the gods for inspiration, he doesn’t paint a particularly flattering portrait of them. In Book One of the Metamorphoses, for example, Apollo falls head over heels in lust with the nymph Daphne. He’s so overcome with desire that he tries to rape her. It takes a sudden intervention from her father, Peneus, to save her honour. He turns Daphne into a laurel bush and Apollo is left frustrated.
But the other gods are no better. Jupiter—the equivalent of Zeus in Roman mythology—rapes lo, another unfortunate nymph. As he’s the father of the gods there’s no one to stop him from doing whatever he likes. Although he later takes pity on lo, Jupiter only does so to allay his wife Juno’s suspicions. So even actions by the gods that appear on the face of it to be noble and just are motivated by self-interest.
The gods’ morality comes through most strongly in their relationship with mortals. In Book One an angry Jupiter punishes humanity with a flood, and all because of a negative experience with just one man, Lycaon. As this episode clearly demonstrates, the gods are very sensitive to even the slightest hint of disrespect from humans, and woe betide anyone who dares to anger them or defy them in any way. The only mortals who survive Jupiter’s mighty flood are Deucalion and Pyrrha and that was only because they’d paid appropriate piety and respect to the gods. Burning incense and making animal sacrifices are considered more important to the immortals than the virtual annihilation of humanity.
8. Discuss the nature of poetry with reference to Horace’s Ars Poetica.
Ans: Horace (65-8 B.C.) was less a literary theorist than a practising, professional poet. Because he wrote during a period in Roman history when the value of literature was taken for granted, he felt no great need to defend literature from philosophical attacks or to ponder its underlying nature or purposes. His great statement about poetry, often called the Ars Poetica, was in fact a poetic epistle addressed to members of an influential family interested in writing.
In the epistle, Horace focuses mainly on giving very practical advice about how a writer should effectively appeal to an audience (or at least avoid arousing their ridicule). Horace’s ideas, which were influenced by Aristotle’s and which were sometimes later even more explicitly combined with them by subsequent theorists, were extremely influential during the middle ages and Renaissance and into the eighteenth century. Some similarities exist between Horace’s ideas and those of recent reader response theorists.
Horace believed that a literary text should observe the basic rules of its particular genre—rules passed down by custom or tradition. It should be unified and not too complex, and it should be self-consistent. Violations of consistency (for instance, having a god suddenly appear on stage to solve problems in a plot) will seem ridiculous to the audience. The text should be carefully crafted; nothing should seem out of place. It should be a generally faithful imitation of real life and should use generally familiar language. It should convey wisdom, but it must also please. The most successful works tend both to please and to instruct (partly because they thereby appeal to the widest range of audience interests.
For Horace, satisfying the audience is crucial; failure to do so will result in ridicule. The audience will be familiar with customary practices, social decorum, and the standards.of real life. By violating any of these, the artist risks making a fool of herself. The audience will consist of different social segments (the young and old, for instance, or those interested in entertainment and those interested in instruction). The writer who hopes to be successful should therefore try to appeal to as many audience interests as possible (without, of course, being inconsistent or violating custom). Because the audience will not tolerate mediocrity in a writer, the writer must seek to eliminate as many flaws as possible from his work. In general the writer should keep his potential audience constantly in mind and should do nothing that might provoke their ridicule.
9. How did Horace influence the Romantic poets?
Ans: Horace modelled for the Romantics what it means to go back into time and use the past as a referential point for artistic creation. One of Horace’s distinctive elements is that he turned to the Greeks for inspiration. When Horace writes, Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit et artes intulit agresti Latio (“Conquered Greece took captive her savage conqueror and brought her arts into rustic Latium”), it becomes clear that the Legacy of the past is to be harvested and understood by the future generations. Horace’s approach to looking to the Greeks to guide his art is something that the Romantics did in constructing their own work. Just as Horace was innovative in using stylistic devices found in Greek works of art, he also was instrumental in bringing the works of the Greek poets to a Roman audience. The Romantic poets did much of the same thing in their work. Embracing a spirit of Classicism. The Romantic poets used what they saw in Roman and Greek poets as embodying the greatness of the Classical period. Antiquity was considered a hallowed and sacred muse for the Romantic poet. In this way, the Romantics were influenced by Horace’s ideas of looking at the past and integrating it into artistic creation.
The Romantics were deliberate in how Horace influenced them. Byron directly referenced Horace in Childe Harold, reflecting the impact that Horace held upon him. Wordsworth’s style in writing is similar to Horace, in that both meant to write for a general audience. Both styles are intended for direct appreciation in a larger setting, not reserved to the upper echelon of social stratification. . Horace rejected “high-falutin” language and modes of expression in his work. For example, in one of his Satires. Horace writes about a stroll in which he encounters a boar that accompanies him. Wordsworth’s emphasis on poetry “seeing into the life of things” and being about “commonplace subjects” is reflective of Horace’s topics. Keats’ opening to “Ode to a Nightingale” is reminiscent of Horace’s “Epode XIV.”
Horace’s idea of “the cup that brings on Lethean slumber” is reflected in Keats’ “hemlock drunk.” Both speak to being transformed to a different state that enables transformative artistic capacity. Such references help to illuminate how Horace influenced the Romantics. The Romantic thinkers were active agents in embracing Horace in their works.
The influence was not solely in style and language. Horace addressed topics that fascinated the Romantic thinkers. Horace’s articulation of “carpe diem,” literally translated to “believing in as little as possible in the morrow,” is an idea that the Romantic thinkers embraced. Horace’s ideas such as Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus (“Now is the time for drinking, now the time to dance footloose upon the earth.) Horace’s love of passion and embrace of individual freedom is another concept that the Romantics admired. Romantic thinkers wanted to locate consciousness in the seat of the subjective and found a supportive voice in the works of Horace. In these ways, Horace cast a very large shadow on the Romantic thinkers.
10. Did Horace have problems with inspiration?
Ans: During Horace’s lifetime (65 BC — 8 BC) inspiration was associated with wild bohemians who sought inspiration from god-like muses by avoiding washing and growing their hair and fingernails long.
Horace was among the poets who spoke out against inspiration. He, instead, urged poets to focus on their internal capacities. While he allowed that natural talent was helpful he famously wrote that “the source and fountainhead of writing well is wise thinking” (1.4.5) That is the lyric poet could train himself in craft and in doing. add to what was already present in nature by shaping. it so that all that he saw and experienced was made beautiful and what he called “decorous” in the poem.
By decorous he meant that everything was distributed in the right way and given its proper importance. Metrics were strict during Horace’s time, and Horace was a master of them, so such distribution likely involved not just right thinking but also a careful attention to stresses and rhythms.
In short, craft was more important than touchy-feely inspirations. In that poets crafted what was there in the world. they didn’t have any more problems with inspiration than, say, a construction worker does.
11. Discuss the nature of poetry with reference to Horace’s Ars Poetica.
Ans: Horace (65-8 B.C.) was less a literary theorist than a practising, professional poet. Because he wrote during a period in Roman history when the value of literature was taken for granted, he felt no great need to defend literature from philosophical attacks or to ponder its underlying nature or purposes. His great statement about poetry, often called the Ars Poetica, was in fact a poetic epistle addressed to members of an influential family interested in writing.
In the epistle, Horace focuses mainly on giving very practical advice about how a writer should effectively appeal to an audience (or at least avoid arousing their ridicule). Horace’s ideas, which were influenced by Aristotle’s and which were sometimes later even more explicitly combined with them by subsequent theorists, were extremely influential during the middle ages and Renaissance and into the eighteenth century. Some similarities exist between Horace’s ideas and those of recent reader response theorists.
Horace believed that a literary text should observe the basic rules of its particular genre—rules passed down by custom or tradition. It should be unified and not too complex, and it should be self-consistent. Violations of consistency (for instance, having a god suddenly appear on stage to solve problems in a plot) will seem ridiculous to the audience. The text should be carefully crafted; nothing should seem out of place. It should be a generally faithful imitation of real life and should use generally familiar language. It should convey wisdom, but it must also please. The most successful works tend both to please and to instruct (partly because they thereby appeal to the widest range of audience interests.
For Horace, satisfying the audience is crucial; failure to do so will result in ridicule. The audience will be familiar with customary practices, social decorum, and the standards of real life. By violating any of these, the artist risks making a fool of herself. The audience will consist of different social segments (the young and old, for instance, or those interested in entertainment and those interested in instruction). The writer who hopes to be successful should therefore try to appeal to as man’ audience interests as possible (without, of course, being inconsistent or violating custom). Because the audience will not tolerate mediocrity in a writer, the writer must seek to eliminate as many flaws as possible from his work. In general the writer should keep his potential audience constantly in mind and should do nothing that might provoke their ridicule.
12. What is the mood of Horace’s Ode 1.2?
Ans: This is a great question. Horace is a wonderful poet, who writes some of the best poetry in the Latin language.
This ode (1.2) begins on a sombre note. One prodigy is mentioned after another. First, there is snow. Second, there is fierce hail. Third, there is lightning that strikes the sacred citadels. Finally, there is a flood. This concatenation of prodigies is so great that the city is in fear. In fact, according to Horace, the people may even be speculating about the inauguration of a new age.However, there is nothing desirable about this new age, since it is the age of Pyrrha, which is a cruel one.
According to mythology Pyrrha and her husband Deucalion were the only surviving humans after a global flood that destroyed all of humanity on account of their impiety. Destruction by water is underlined. Horace continues this motif for two stanzas. He writes of strange sights (nova monstra). Proteus, the guardian of Neptune’s seals in Virgil’s Georgics, is seen driving his herd of (presumably) seals to the mountain tops. Fishes are there too; they are caught on top of elms, while deer swim in terror.
Through these vignettes, Horace is able to set the stage of his ode. Times are dire. The mere mention of prodigies suggests this fact, since all prodigies presuppose a rupture in the pax deorum. In a word, the Romans are in trouble.
