西方文化课程论文.1doc1

西方文化课程论文

课程号140010190

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2011年10月27日

词条解释:

1. Oedipus the king:

Oedipus the king which was written by Sophocles was the story of a man who unknowingly committed terrible sin. An oracle said that the child Oedipus would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother.So the parents left him on a hillside,but he was rescued and brought up as a son of the king of another country. Hearing the oracle,Oedipus ran away from that country. While traveling, he met and killed his father ,king of Thebes and marry the queen of the country who was his mother.

2. Discus Thrower:

Discus Thrower was a sculpture in which the relaxation an contraction of the muscle were successfully brought out and the sense of body movement is remarkably strong,bringing out a good sense of harmony and the balance of opposites.

3. Book of Job

This is a poetic drama with the following scheme:

Part one: The prologue

Part Two: The poem proper

Job speaks --Job and his friends state their case--Job speaks again--God answer Job--Job answer God

Part Three: The epilogue

This was a book which was written by Job, a legendary figure in the distant past who is a law-abiding and God-fearing innocent man. This book described how he endured all his sufferings and still kept his faith in God.

4. Amos

Chronologically it is the earliest prophet. Amos was a shepherd living around 800 B.C who witnessed the exploitation of the poor, and corruption in the courts of justice. In Amos we can hear clearly the angry voice of the laboring people. He warned his people of the coming invasion by Assyria and Egypt and was accused of plotting revolution.

5. Code of Chivalry

As a knight ,he was pledged to protect the weak ,to fight for the church, to be loyal to his lord and to respect women of noble birth.

6. Beowulf (700-750 A.D)

Beowulf is an Anglo-Saxon epic ,in alliterative verse, originating from the collective efforts of oral literature. The story is set in Denmark or Sweden and tells how the hero,Beowulf ,defeats the monster, but eventually receives his own death in fighting with a fire dragon.

7. Pleiade(七星诗社）

This was a group of poets who made efforts to enrich the French language by writing in a style that was clear and free from useless rhetoric.

8.The land of Cockayne(1567)

The picture shows a fool's paradise in which tables are laden with tasty fishes, houses are roofed with pies and roast pigs. The men and the tree are not sinners in the grip of Satan but they have chosen to be slaves and have given up all respect for the sake of animal satisfaction.

9.The rising of the cross

It is a painting which is made by Peter Paul Rubens . And it is heroic in scale and majestic in conception. Here in this picture, Rubens owes a great deal to Italian masters: to Michelangelo for the muscular bodies, to Titian ,for the glowing color and to Caravaggio, the dramatic lighting.

10.Cable and love

It was a play best known to the Chinese audience. It is about the

love of a young aristocrat for a girl of humble background conveying the theme of the revolt of human feeling against the social convention.

A study of the differences between Greek

and Roman mythology

Greek mythology and Roman mythology together consist an important part of the western culture. However, it is often very hard to differ Greek mythology from Roman mythology since Roman mythology has introduced many gods from Greek mythology. So it is necessary to make a comparative study between them in order to see the differences and the uniqueness in Roman mythology.

Greek mythology is a body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks. It is a collection of stories concerning many "gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cultural and ritual practices".

Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories of gods and heroes, concerning with ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system.

There is an obvious different interpretation of the construction of the world in the Greek mythology and Roman mythology. In Greek mythology, the world is in an oval

universe. There are five part in the world which are humans' land, the unknown ocean, the chaos at the end of the ocean, heaven on the Mount Olympus where gods and goddess live, and the underground where giants lives. The heaven, ocean and the chaos are governed respectively by three main gods, Zeus, Poseidon and Hardis. The land where human lives is co-governed by these three gods. But the underground is left aside with the giants keeping in the underground world.

Greek mythology has recorded the origin of the world in a romantic way. It is said that the oldest god in the beginning of the universe is Chaos. He marks the beginning of the world and the myth. Then, Gaea and Tartarus were born. After that, Gaea gave birth to twelve Ouranos meaning the sky and Oceanus meaning the ocean. Also, at the bottom of the earth, Erevus, meaning darkness and Night gave birth to Light and Day. After that, twelve Titans were born. These twelve titans later became the forefathers of gods Greek mythology. The main gods in the mythology were all descents of the twelve titans. We can see that in the perspective of Greek mythology, there is a formation process of the world from the chaos and the appearance of light give brightness to the world. The personification of the nature explain the formation process of the wold. This is a romantic imagination of the world origin and the construction of the world.

However, in Roman mythology, we see no such romantic explanation of the world construction as found in Greek mythology. In fact, there are no record of the origin of the world in Roman myths. The old Rome did have its own tales about the early world before the many gods. But they were mostly related to the history of Rome. Only after the establishment of the Roman Republic, roman poets started to model the Greek mythology to write their own myths. Thus, the well-recorded part of the Roman mythology lacks the description of the world formation. It mostly concern with its own country rather than the world.

Seen from the perception of the origin of the world, Greek mythology are more of an attempt to understand the existence of the world and are more aware of the outside world. But Roman mythology are more concerned about itself, mainly dealing with what is related to themselves.

Then the second difference between Greek and Roman mythology is the gods. The gods in Greek mythology are human-shaped with very obvious personal characters. They have the emotions as human has. They can be happy, sad, good and evil. They can be jealous of each other and plotting. There is just little difference between gods and human, which is that gods are immortal while human are mortal. Greek mythology has build a world of gods which is very similar to human society. In this sense, we see that people in old Greece did worship the deity but they do not overemphasize on the sublimity of the gods and treat gods as moral standard. Gods are seen as a reflection of human life.

However, in Roman mythology, tit should be noted that the in-digetes are different in that they do not possess human character as the gods in Greek mythology do. They do not have siblings or marriage. They only have supernatural power and have mechanical function on people's daily activities. They have little influence on people's moral and thinking since they themselves are depicted as an feature without much emotion and thought. But the second group of gods, the introduced gods from other countries, names as dingetes are endowed with vivid personal characters. Since the gods are introduce from other myths, the Roman poets also model their way of personification of gods.

However, we must see that the personal characters of gods are changed a little in the process of introduction on order to meet the political and economical needs. For example, the god of war, Acres is originally a foolhardy god in Greek mythology who always cause troubles. But after introduction into Roman mythology, Acres is reinterpreted as the protector of soldiers since the Rome at that time were in the process of extending its territory and having a lot of wars. The negative image of Acres was changed into a favored god because of the need for Rome's advocacy of war for the sake of extending its land.

Thus, we see that gods in Greek mythology can be served as a reflection of the real life in ancient Greece while the gods in Roman mythology conveys political aims and are more of pragmatism.

The third difference is the legends. In both Greek and Roman mythology, they

are full of popular heroic legends. These heroic legends can often tell us about the value of the ancient people. The value they worship is often gave to the heroes in their myth.

In Greek mythology, heroic legends can be classified into three groups which are heroes of war, heroes of adventure, and heroes of culture. In most case, the heroic legends in Greek mythology describe the eager for adventure and exploration of the new world. In the adventures, heroes can do things according to their own will, but also they are manipulated by a certain god behind. It is not only a adventure of themselves but also a test from the god. The legends often emphasize on the individual achievements and growth. Very often it has a central character who behave much more brave than the others. Heroes in Greek mythology are more of individualism, more focused on their own glory of achievement.

But heroes in Roman mythology differ from the heroes in Greek mythology in the sense that they are less aware of personal achievement. In Roman mythology, patriotism is a big theme. The heroes are depicted more of a image with the sense of self-sacrifice for the sake of the country. The heroes in Roman mythology are more rational than gods in Greek mythology.

We can see the Greek mythology emphasize on individual glories. There are a lot of heroes who gain great individual achievements whereas in Roman mythology, heroes are more likely to sacrifice for the interest of the country, whose glory is usually linked with the country

Greek mythology and Roman mythology have many similarities since Roman mythology has introduced many gods from Greek mythology. But we can distinguish Roman mythology in the aspects of the view of world construction, the nature of gods and the value shown by the heroic legends.