October 14 Lecture Notes

October 14 lecture notes:

Assignment #1: Go out and have a bad day

            -Only way to experience the muddle of mythology

Searching for clues, go be a detective!

Mythic clue: the autumn leaves

            -Homeric Hymns

            -Ovid: Ceres and Proserpina (Greek Persephone)

Story: Ceres is out looking for her daughter, b/c Proserpina is out looking for a flower (Narcissus) and Pluto comes up and captures her and takes her into the underworld.

-There is an agreement between Jove and Pluto that Pluto can have his daughter, Proserpina

Marriage: a contract between men that agrees that ownership of the girl is passed from one man to another; the act of abduction from the underworld

-Ceres is angry b/c Jove gave her daughter away!

            -She can’t take back her daughter b/c there is already an agreement, but she can make the situation dire. She uses her powers to turn the season to nuclear winter (changing of the leaves, signifies death)

-2 men go to the underworld to rescue Proserpina, run into Pluto and comment that they are coming to take back the beautiful woman

            -Dumb and Dumber Go To Hell: New blockbuster film!

-Pluto glues him to a chair in the underworld—“you must stay here FOREVER!”

            -He is eternally tantalized by crisp, clear, flowing rivers and flourishing fruit trees

            -Other guy rolls a rock up and down mountains, if he can get the rock to the top he is free to go

-However, Hercules comes down to be a hero (Its raining men!), and rips one of the men from the bench (‘tis the reason Greek men have such small bottoms)

*Look for something subtle and relate it back to mythology*

            -From the past or the present

Arachne:

Arachne by Velazquez

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vel%C3%A1zquez_Arachne.jpg

Painters attempt to create a frame story in literature

Frame Story: a story within a story within a story

Moral of the story: Immortality

            -Telling a story that never ends

*Metamorphosis is both punishment and reward

            -If Ovid’s fate will be to always be web spinning, she will forever be immortal through spider’s webs

Homework Assignment: Find the leg of Minerva, or one that is an equivalent!

            Déjà vu: French literal translation= “already seen”

The Saragossa Manuscript

            -Maddening frame story

            -Groundhog Day is the modern adaptation

-Point of Ovid is to become confused by the immense emersion of stories

Inggris: Jupiter and Thetis

http://www.artble.com/imgs/0/b/b/914870/jupiter_and_thetis.jpg

Picasso: Guernica

Gives a pictorial quotation of the Inggris painting

            -Thought Picasso was doing something dramatically new when in fact he is depicting great paintings from before him

            - He was transfixed with mythological symbolism

Satyr: Greek myth one of a class of lustful, drunken woodland gods

            -Roman representation as a man with a goat’s ears, tail, legs, and horns

            -A man with strong sexual desires

Trope:  a figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression

            -To turn (tropics, tropical lands)

Polytropos: Ability to turn in many ways; of many shifts

Marsyas: Claimed he could play the flute better than Apollo and his fate led to him being hung upside down, de-skinned and filleted alive

Pelops: founder of the house of Atreus, father was Tantalus

            -Savage Banquet: Tantalus cuts Pelops into pieces to make a stew and served it to the gods, Demeter, still weeping over the abduction of Proserpina, absentmindedly ate some of the stew (his ivory shoulder). The other gods knew what was happening so they rebirthed him with only one piece filled in with the ivory

           

October 12 Lecture Notes

October 12, 2010

Myth Notes

Relationship between reality and the imagination

Foreground Information: general information that gives a general setting for the story (ies) to come

Europa=sister of Cadmus, granddaughter of Io(who had also been turned into a bull while dealing with Jove)

            Painting by Tesha: The rape of Europa

Ekphrasis:: a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art

Minerva (to the Romans)(Athena, to the Greeks)-the daddy’s girl & Arachne

            -“to praise is less rewarding than receiving praise” Minerva—she’s a bitch!

-Arachne claimed she was a more talented weaver than the great goddess Minerva-foreshadowing for awful things to happen to those who claim to be greater than a god

            Hubris: extreme haughtiness or arrogance

Corrine’s parents: Christine & Tom

Mentor: a teacher or helper, an experienced or trusted advisor

Painting: Velazquez’s Spinners

Persian Story Teller: “This was so (logos), and this wasn’t so (mythos), It happened, and it didn’t happen”

            I.e.: Aladdin

Pagan (Secular) Tradition: human beings>gods –Ovid is in this tradition!

Religious Traditions (Christians and Jews): humans should be submissive to the gods

In her contest, Minerva depicts the hill of Mars (pg. 180)

            -1. The glory of the gods, herself in particular. 2. Shows what happens when mortals contest against the gods

            Moral: didactic: designed or intended to teach--  you will respect the gods or else!

Arachne’s depiction: Shows the victims of the gods and how they use their power to be deceitful, they are immoral and they commit awful crimes

            -Her painting was better which ANGERED Minerva: she hung Arachne and turned her into a spider

Mendala: Any of various ritualistic geometric designs symbolic of the universe, used in Hinduism and Buddhism as an aid to meditation.

Perfidy: treachery, duplicity, deceit, infidelity, faithlessness

Assignment for Presentation: The background of a mythological story

            -We will be assigned a story and will become EXPERTS on the story and give a 1 min presentation about the story. Know it forward and backward, research it, make it apart of your being!

A shining gold basket from generations past, given to Europa, if she would have looked in the basket, she would have realized

-Painted in the basket, 2 men were watching a heifer swimming in an ocean with a young virgin girl, Zeus was also in the painting—the story of Io! (Europa’s great-great-great grandmother)

Myth: you discover from which story you come!

The single sentences that change everything...Book V

Book V:

Perseus using Medusa's head to complete his battle

Perseus and Phineas: Here is where blockbuster makes their money. "300" anyone? Its a gory, gruesome battle tale. 'Nuff said.

Polydectes: It would seem by now Medusa has done her work. Believers, and in this case, skeptics, alike will be turned to stone from her 'death stare'. Maybe this is what men today are afraid of when they get "the look" from a disapproving female!

Pegasus: The winged horse was born from Medusa's blood and Minerva is a happy and awe-struck woman when she rests her eyes on the steed. (I made my parents rewind the part of the old Paramount Pictures when the winged horse would come running through the clouds multiple times before we could watch the movie!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVycXOAlfHU

Pyrenus: This fellow is rather interesting in the way that his evil character sets the stage for many fairy tales. He welcomes visitors and once they enter he hopes they will never leave, once they do, he has a breakdown and commits suicide. His character reminds me of the nasty witch from Hansel and Gretal.


Ceres and Proserpina: "To ask is not to rape." Pluto is struck by Cupid's arrow and rushes to take away Propserpina. Ceres, heartbroken, searches high and low for her daughter, she created drought until it is decided that she will have split custody of her father and husband. 

Ovidian Imagery

Io and Jove

Perseus and Andromeda

Phaethon

Pyramus and Thisbe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*I wish I had an art gallery full of these original works. What a happy girl you would have!

 

 

 

The single sentences that change everything...Book IV

Book IV:
Pyramus and Thisbe: The star-crossed lovers escaped the grasp of their forbidding parents, but alas, they find their fate at the end of a knife while searching for each other to full fill an elopement.
Mars and Venus: Literally caught in adultery by a thinly woven chain, the Sun is punished to forever burn and be watched as he rises in the East and sets in the West.
Salmacis and Hermaphroditus: The lazy nymph pleasured no one but herself and when she found something she wanted, the handsome Hermaphroditus, he rejected her, no surprise, karma's a bitch.
Cadmus and Harmonia: Both held fast in the city of Thebes, Cadmus wished to be like the snake that he had slain, he morphed, and the devastated Harmonia wished the same fate upon herself. Together they slithered into hiding. 
Perseus and Andromeda: The fair girl is chained to an ocean front rock where the mighty Perseus must battle a great sea monster in order to save her. He does and together they were joined in love :)

The single sentences that change everything...Book III

Book III:

Cadmus: A dragon slayer plucked the little horny teeth from the fallen dragon, plants them, and voila! Thebes is born.
Actaeon: Although it may have been by chance,to give a boy the benefit of the doubt, the goddess Diana is seen naked, his punishment is to become the stag he and his hounds were searching for originally. What fate!
Semele: Oh the dear girl, so naive first to fall for Jove, then his hysteric wife, Juno, she requests to see the great god in his true appearance. Unfortunately for her, it results in over-stimulation of all her senses, and she explodes.
Tiresias: The fool claimed that men have more fun doing the naughty to the all-powerful Juno, and as a result, she blinds him. The End.
Narcissus: If only he did not know himself, another could have loved him as equally. Instead, the vain bastard drowned in his own reflection. 

Blog Master

Hello All,

Because I am a compulsive note-taker, I'm going to start becoming a blog master for all of our class lecture notes to supplement our learning. Plus, I think it will help me to reinforce the ideas and stories if I have to write them out multiple times.  Yay, win-win situation!

SA