Diana
Diana was an ancient Italian goddess whom the Romans identified with the Greek Artemis. She was a patroness of wild things and of birth, both human and animal. Apparently a fertility goddess of the 'mountain-mother' type, she was the patron goddess of the Roman plebians. At Rome Diana was the
Seneca's Phaedra is a Roman tragedy that retells the ancient Greek myth of Phaedra, Hippolytus, and Theseus. It is based on earlier Greek versions, especially Euripides' Hippolytus, but with Seneca’s own intense, philosophical, and psychological style.
Phaedra is a Roman tragedy by Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger, a philosopher and dramatist before 54 A.D. It is 1280 lines of verse. It is a powerful depiction of the disintegration of the character of a woman driven by desire for her stepson, Hippolytus. Her attempt to resist the passion proves futile.
The three principles of
dramatic composition are that a play should consist of one main action, occurring
at one time(not longer than the play takes to perform), and in one place; expanded
from Aristotle's “Poetics” by 16th-century Italian critics, and by French
classical dramatists of the 17th century. The unities were often modified;
e.g., the time limit was extended to twenty-four hours, and the place to one
house or town, rather than one room or street.
The Oxford Companion to English Literature by Sir Paul Harvey
Greek or Attic tragedy is the
earliest form of tragedy known to man. The history of Classical Greek tragedy
spans a remarkably short time. The three masters, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides— each of the three was found to be a genius. These three are all the
Greek tragedians that survive to us in their works.
Aeschylus (525-456 B.C), son of Euphoriant (a mother of the old Athenian nobility), was the earliest of the three great Athenian tragic poets. He was born at Eleusis, a town in Attica. His “Agamemnon” is the first of three plays in Aeschylus’s trilogy, “The Oresteia”. According to Greek mythology, Agamemnon rules the ancient kingdom of Mycenae and leads the Greek army during the infamous Trojan War. Agamemnon is a legendary hero known for his bravery and skill on the battlefield. The main themes of Agamemnon are revenge and justice. Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife, murdered her husband after he had returned from the Trojan War, in retaliation for his sacrifice of their daughter.
The history of ancient myths, especially Greek and Roman
myths play an important role in the field of English literature. Without a
clear conception of them, any study of English literature is not possible. For this,
here we try to learn about the major mythical characters, animals, and objects
of Ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt. The
main theme of all Greek tragedies is man's struggle against fate, though each
poet’s conception of the tragedy is different.
The ancient people of every civilization had no clear idea of God and His mysterious powers. The Greeks had some limitations. They were quite dark about others. They believed in the supernatural powers and their secrets in their ways. But they had one great asset, a beautiful language for the immortal expression of lovely thoughts. The main theme of all Greek tragedies is man's struggle against fate, though each poet’s conception of the tragedy is different. The poets of that time in Greece imagined that there were supernatural beings who controlled the universe. They called them gods and goddesses. They interpreted the mysteries of these unseen powers with their experience of the visible world. These people made their deities in their images. They imagined them as males and females and made Olympus their abode. Thus, Olympus was made into a humanized world. They imagined them as beautiful, friendly, amusing; but fearful and dangerous when they got angry. The gods were immortal, and so, more powerful than human beings. They shared human feelings and sometimes became childish and indecent, losing their sanity. However, they believed that gods and goddesses were sensible despite their occasional nonsensical activities. The Greek and Roman writers used this general concept of the time about supernatural powers in their writings. Thus, they gave better shapes to the myths.
Cognitive theory suggests that the human mind is like a computer that is constantly processing and encoding data. According to cognitive theory, when a person experiences stimuli, his mind will look toward prior schema (or internal frameworks created by memories) to help them understand this information.
Cognitive theory is a psychological theory that explains how
peoples’ thought, beliefs and perceptions shape their behavior and emotions. It
focuses on the idea that how and what people think leads to their emotions and
that certain thoughts and beliefs can lead to healthy or disturbed emotions and
behaviors.
Whitman as a mystic poet:
It is an established fact that Mysticism is not a philosophy, or doctrine, but rather a temper of mind. A mystical experience, according to Bertrand Russell, involves insight, a sense of unity and the unreality of time and space, and a belief that evil is mere an appearance. Whitman’s poetry is full of mystic and transcendental strains. He had no coherent philosophy of life, but he certainly shows a strong note of mysticism and transcendentalism in his poetry. Here it is important to note that he was deeply influenced by Emerson, the American transcendentalist.
