Class Notes 10/21/10

Sexson Wisdom: All Classical Mythology may be found in Ovid Somewhere.

Our Minute Story is Due Nov. 16th.

Blogs to Read- Curtis, Jase, John, Melinda, and Sarah's

TERM PAPERS: Your term paper should be related to the importance of this class in Henderson and the Rain King.

THE THREE STAGE THEOS TAKES US THROUGH

Conviviality
Rape- in the philological sense
Indifference.

Sexson did a reading from Flannery O'Connor's GreenLeaf.  (I'm sure Rio will be available to make photocopies of this story for anyone :)

When we were talking about Procne in Greek Mythology we could not find a definition of what birds everyone turned into in Ovid's telling. Sexson routed through the depths of his library and found the metamophoses that will be on our tests.

Tereus translates into a Hoopoe
Philomela transforms into a Nightingale
Procne metamorphs into a Swallow


Remember Scylla- The look of Purple Hair


Myths is Bulls (Sexson widsom)

Bull is a Crete story

Aside; Hermes- In Greece all the Phallus' (Hermes had an ever hard on) were Knocked off the Hermes at crossroads during the Christian movement.

FOR  YOUR OWN ENJOYMENT- Research Priapus

Greek word for home- Nostos- Nostalgic

Buy Eugene O'niel's Desire Under the Elms

Shakespeare's Richard III is translation (you know, of sorts) of Daedulus and Icarus (SU-ON)

Read Portrait of An Artist As A Young Man in your spare (do we still have this?) time. (By James Joyce)

Daedulus and Icarus

Daedulus says "Though he owns all, he does not own the air."

"The artists needs to alter nature so that it can be seen as it really is"- Sexson Wisdom 101, this is inside of the story.

"The artist trains the world to see things."- Sexson Wisdom 201.

The Next few weeks we will be focusing on the story of Baucis and Philemon. You should begin reading Henderson and the Rain King and it would be wise to begin thinking of a paper topic now instead of later.

On Bad Days

I don't know if I believe in bad days anymore; just days that build character. A day can't be bad. It's not as if the day began to pout, and if rain is mother earth's tears, and not Zeus' blessing, I'm guessing she's crying because she's happy like any old mother who can't help but be overwhelmed by beauty or feeling. So what is a bad day? You. You and that unbridled pandorum of feelings that can't help but sway you this way or that. Ha. No wonder Xenophanes explained the Gods as abstractions of the human mind. The Gods all behave as meddlesome children who cannot control their emotions and disregard any collateral damage from their actions. So how often do we suffer the Gods?

It would seem to me that within each story within Ovid's rest a moral that serves to better help us live our lives to the fullest. But as easy as it is to pinpoint and figure out those stories which we've lived, how do we make the maneuver to understanding and most importantly remembering the stories that have yet to play out in our own lives?

A famous poet once said "Life wouldn't be so beautiful if it wasn't for our ability to forget if only to remember again." And while I don't exactly agree with him, he makes a strong point. We are a forgetful people. We often suffer through the same indulgences time and time again, because we never learn, or we forget, and are forced once again to drown in the chthonic waters until the day comes where we once again recollect, and remember the mor(t)ality of the stories passed down to us.

The Muddle of the Middle- class notes

"This is what Separates the boys form the men"

....It started out bad & got worse."

Aside: Homeric Hymns

Bad Joke 1: We should name the planet/moon Pluto, Persephone.....It seems more fitting.

Sexson Joke 1(?)- Persephone of the nice ankles....

-Marriage is the act of Abduction.

Demeter-Da Meter- Da Matter- Mother

Note! If your in a Chthonic situation don't touch the food.

#Assignment! Between now & next Tuesday find three clues of myth in your reality.

Aside: Buy the Gods Made Flesh

Look at Valezquez- Minerva & Arachne- spinners

Sexsonian Wisdom: The telling of stories transforms us morally.

#Assignment! Find the leg of Minerva in the world.

Aside- Fiction of the Archives- Natalie Zema Davis

Aside- Manuscript Found in Saragossa- Jan Potocki

Film Adaptation- The Saragossa Manuscript... Garcia showed this film for six years in the movie theater he owned.

Definition of a Satyr: Someone with Strong Sexual Desires.....So a man? (Bad Joke 2)

Trope- To Turn a thought, Skilled morphed into Greek is polytropos.

Demeter And Persephone Notes

The New Golden Bough/Dying & Reviving God, 283.

I. Demeter & Persephone

 A. Reflects the decay & revival of vegetation

  1. Identical myths

     a. Syrian- Aphrodite & Adonis

     b. Phrygian- Cybele & Attis

     c. Egyptian- Isis & Osiris

  2. Story

     a. goddess mourns the loss of a loved one

     b. the lost personifies the vegetation

     c. more especially the corn

     d. the lost one dies in winter to revive in the spring.

  3. The Lost One

     a. Greek fancy embodies it as the tender & pure form of a dead daughter bewailed by her sorrowing mother

     b. Oriental imagination figured the loved & lost one as a dead lover or as a dead husband lamented by his leman or his wife.

II. The Hymn to Demeter

 A. Historical facts

  1. Oldest literary document to narrate the myth

  2. Homeric

  3. Critics Assign to 7th Century

 B. Object of Poem

  1. Explain the origin of the Eleusain mysteries

  2. Complete silence of the poet as to Athens & the Athenians

  3. In after ages "they" took a conspicuous part in the festival

  4. Probable the hymn was composed in the far off time when Eleusis was still a pretty independent state.

 C. Hymn reveals to us the conception which the writer entertained of the character & functions of the two goddesses.

  1. Their natural shapes stand out sharply enough under the thin veil of poetical imagery.

  2. Youthful Persephone Plucking Flowers

   a. Roses & Lilies

   b. Crocuses & Violets

   c. Hyacinths & narcissuses

   d. In a Lush Meadow

  3. Pluto, Lord of The Dead

   a. Earth gapes; Issues from the abyss

   b. carried her off on his golden car.

   c. She is to be his bride in the gloomy underworld

  4. Demeter- Sorrowing Mother

   a. Yellow tresses veiled in a dark mourning mantle.

   b. Sought Persephone over land & sea

   c. Learns from Phoebus her daughters fate.

   d. Withdrew in high dungeon from the gods

   e. Took up her abode at Eleusis

   f. She then presents herself to the king's daughter

   g. Guised as an old woman, sitting sadly under the shadow of an Olive tree beside Maiden's well.

   h. The Damsels come to draw water for their father's house.

   i. goddess suffers not the Seed to grow

   j. Vowed never to set foot on Olympus, nor

   k. let the corn sprout till her lost daughter should be restored to her.

   l. Even the Rarian plain near Eleusis lay bare.

   m. Zeus in alarm commands Pluto to disgorge his wife.

   n. Pluto smiles & obeys, but not before giving her the seed of a pomegranate to eat, so that she is forced to return

   o.Zeus judges that 2/3 with her mom, 1/3 with husband (sometimes halvzies)

  D. The Return

   1. Daughter returns to sunshine

   2. Gladly her mother receives her

   3. Demeter blankets the Earth in Corn

   4. Demeter then presents this sight to:

     a. Prince of Eleusis

     b. Triptolemus

     c. Eumolpus

     d. Diocles

     e. The King Celeus

   5. Demeter then reveals her sacred rites and mysteries

  E. The End.- Bard's Speech

   1. "Blessed is the mortal man who has seen these things, but he who has had no share of them in life will never be happy in death when he has descended into the darkness of the grave."

   2. "Ends the hymn with a pious prayer to Demeter & Persephone that they would be pleased to grant him a livelihood in return for his song.

Syrinx

The Reed.
The Pipe.
The blinded eyes.
The Sleepfull eyes,
Our Peacock's Pride.

The Dot Dot Dot
of a swollen story
slept through by Argos
Writer, and Reader alike.

Do You, Ovid,
Will You, Ovid,
Visit answers to my Daimon's day,
To my very own night?

Visit mine and his Eclipse,
if you wish,
By hoofed and heavy mare,
Come stay your visit.

By Day or By Night.
If Epiphany seems fancy stay the day,
and if a ladder come the latter;

This dot dot dot
Translate no fates,
Thus insists a visit,
Come tell me what is it!

The Reed.
The Pipe.
The Blinded Mind,
The Sleepfull Mind,

That Muse and Mercury's deceitful design.
Shall my want be submerged by their sound?
Is it worth it to wake if I must drown?

Quiz # 1 Questions

Quizzing Material
Ch. 1,2,3,7 in Eliade
Sexson's Pdf Article
Ovid's 1-4
Larry Avis Brown
Know The Major Gods Names in Translation from Greek to Roman.

Blogs To Read
Kari Bowles
Mari Shawn
Mayan Killer

Our Questions
1.Pan,Syrinx- Who put Argos to Sleep
2. July 15, 1991
    Franklin Wisconsin
    St. Louis Hospital
3. Mythos and Logos- Truth Story
4. In Illo Tempore- In the great time, Once upon a time.
5. Sparagmos- dismemberment
6. Anamnesis- Unforgetting everything, or Platonic recollection
7. Eliades 5 types of Creation stories
    a. Earth-diver
    b. Creation ex-nihilo
    c. Emergence
    d. Dismemberment
    e. Splitting or Ordering
8. Xenophanes- insisted that the gods were projections of the human mind.
9. metempsychosis-transmigration of souls
10. Europa (that's all I seemed to write....)
11. Who brought the age of Silver about? Jove overthrowing Saturn.
12. Picture Question over our creation stories!
13. 4 Creation Stories
     a. Women Creates
     b.The woman and snake create
     c. World created from dismemberment of Female Goddess
     d. Male creates from speech
14. en-theos- enthusiasm- (possessed by the Gods)
15. Daimon- "guardian angel"- really the other abstract of yourself
16. "Semele"- Sees Jove's true self. Her face goes boom!
17. Cadmus' 4 daughters
     a. Semele
     b. Atonome
     c. Agave
     d. Ino
18. Seth communicated whose Name? Io (Imagine if I0 was an ass and her name was ea. Things would've been a lot easier)
19. Coronis- "Crow" or "Raven"- used to be a white crow- Apollo
20. Kronus- Uranus-Saturn-Zeus
21. Triple Goddess- The Mother, The Maiden, The "Crone"-white goddess
22. Bear-Callisto transforms
23. Actaeon gazes on what he is not ready to see and becomes an animal.........stag.
24. "Don't Look" stories.
25. How did Thebes come about? Planting of Snakes Teeth
26. Pentheus- Refuses to worship Bacchus. - Ino Sparagmos's his ass.

Good Luck!