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Ajax (Sophocles)
Sophocles' ''Ajax'', or ''Aias'' ( or ; grc, Αἴας , gen. ), is a Greek tragedy written in the 5th century BCE. ''Ajax'' may be the earliest of Sophocles' seven tragedies to have survived, though it is probable that he had been composing plays for a quarter of a century already when it was first staged. It appears to belong to the same period as his ''Antigone'', which was probably performed in 442 or 441 BCE, when he was 55 years old. The play depicts the fate of the warrior Ajax, after the events of the '' Iliad'' but before the end of the Trojan War. Plot The play opens with a dialogue between Athena and Odysseus: After the great warrior Achilles had been killed in battle, there was a question as to who should receive his armor. As the man who now could be considered the greatest Greek warrior, Ajax felt he should be given Achilles’ armor, but the two kings, Agamemnon and Menelaus, awarded it instead to Odysseus. Ajax became furious about this and decided to kill t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sophocles
Sophocles (; grc, Σοφοκλῆς, , Sophoklễs; 497/6 – winter 406/5 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. is one of three ancient Greek tragedians, at least one of whose plays has survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those of Aeschylus; and earlier than, or contemporary with, those of Euripides. Sophocles wrote over 120 plays, but only seven have survived in a complete form: ''Ajax'', '' Antigone'', ''Women of Trachis'', '' Oedipus Rex'', '' Electra'', '' Philoctetes'' and ''Oedipus at Colonus''. For almost fifty years, Sophocles was the most celebrated playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens which took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and the Dionysia. He competed in thirty competitions, won twenty-four, and was never judged lower than second place. Aeschylus won thirteen competitions, and was sometimes defeated by Sophocles; Euripides won four. The most famous tragedies of Sophocles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and contains 15,693 lines in its most widely accepted version, and was written in dactylic hexameter. Set towards the end of the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Mycenaean Greek states, the poem depicts significant events in the siege's final weeks. In particular, it depicts a fierce quarrel between King Agamemnon and a celebrated warrior, Achilles. It is a central part of the Epic Cycle. The ''Iliad'' is often regarded as the first substantial piece of European literature. The ''Iliad'', and the ''Odyssey'', were likely written down in Homeric Greek, a literary amalgam of Ionic Greek and other dialects, probably around the late 8th or early 7th century BC. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbert Golder
Herbert Golder (born 1952) is a professor of Classical Studies at Boston University. He has a Ph.D. in classical languages and literature from Yale University. His specialty is Greek mythology and he has to his credit a number of books and films. He played Rabbi Edelmann in the Werner Herzog film '' Invincible'', he was also an assistant director on that film and the co-writer of ''My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? ''My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done'' is a 2009 crime drama film directed by Werner Herzog, and written by Herzog and Herbert Golder. The film stars Michael Shannon as Brad McCullam, a mentally unstable man who kills his own mother (played by Gr ...''. In addition, he is the Editor-in-Chief of '' Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics''. External links * Boston University faculty pag* American male screenwriters Boston University faculty Living people Yale University alumni Screenwriters from Massachusetts 1952 births {{US-screenwriter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lament
A lament or lamentation is a passionate expression of grief, often in music, poetry, or song form. The grief is most often born of regret, or mourning. Laments can also be expressed in a verbal manner in which participants lament about something that they regret or someone that they have lost, and they are usually accompanied by wailing, complaint, moaning and/or crying. Laments constitute some of the oldest forms of writing, and examples exist across human cultures. History Many of the oldest and most lasting poems in human history have been laments. The Lament for Sumer and Ur dates back at least 4000 years to ancient Sumer, the world's first urban civilization. Laments are present in both the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', and laments continued to be sung in elegiacs accompanied by the aulos in classical and Hellenistic Greece. Elements of laments appear in ''Beowulf'', in the Hindu Vedas, and in ancient Near Eastern religious texts. They are included in the City Lament, Meso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Onomatopoeic
Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''meow'' (or ''miaow''), ''roar'', and ''chirp''. Onomatopoeia can differ between languages: it conforms to some extent to the broader linguistic system; hence the sound of a clock may be expressed as ''tick tock'' in English, in Spanish and Italian (shown in the picture), in Mandarin, in Japanese, or in Hindi. The English term comes from the Ancient Greek compound ''onomatopoeia'', 'name-making', composed of ''onomato''- 'name' and -''poeia'' 'making'. Thus, words that imitate sounds can be said to be onomatopoeic or onomatopoetic. Uses In the case of a frog croaking, the spelling may vary because different frog species around the world make different sounds: Ancient Greek (only in Aristophanes' comic play ''The Frogs'') proba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protagonist
A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a story contains a subplot, or is a narrative made up of several stories, then each subplot may have its own protagonist. The protagonist is the character whose fate is most closely followed by the reader or audience, and who is opposed by the antagonist. The antagonist provides obstacles and complications and creates conflicts that test the protagonist, revealing the strengths and weaknesses of the protagonist's character, and having the protagonist develop as a result. Etymology The term ''protagonist'' comes , combined of (, 'first') and (, 'actor, competitor'), which stems from (, 'contest') via (, 'I contend for a prize'). Ancient Greece The earliest known examples of a protagonist are found in Ancient Greece. At first, dramatic p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Scully (poet)
James Scully (born 1937, New Haven, Connecticut) is an American poet. Died 12/11/20. Biography Scully attended Roman Catholic grammar and high schools. He was a beneficiary of the post–World War II economic expansion, including tuition-free access to a local teachers college. In 1964, supported by a National Defense Fellowship, he received a Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut. Recently he published a journal of impressions, incorporating historical information following a visit to the former Yugoslavia. This was published originally in Serbian translation. Azul Editions published the English language text: ''Vagabond Flags: Serbia & Kosovo'' (2009). ''Angel in Flames: Selected Poems & Translations 1967-2011'' is the most recent of eleven books of poems. A collection of critical essays, ''Line Break: Poetry As Social Practice'' (1988) was reissued in 2005 with a foreword by Adrienne Rich. The many translations and co-translations include Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transliteration
Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or Latin → . For instance, for the Modern Greek term "", which is usually translated as " Hellenic Republic", the usual transliteration to Latin script is , and the name for Russia in Cyrillic script, "", is usually transliterated as . Transliteration is not primarily concerned with representing the sounds of the original but rather with representing the characters, ideally accurately and unambiguously. Thus, in the Greek above example, is transliterated though it is pronounced , is transliterated though pronounced , and is transliterated , though it is pronounced (exactly like ) and is not long. Transcription, conversely, seeks to capture sound rather than spelling; "" corresponds to in the International Phonetic Alphabet. While ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Romanized
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and transcription, for representing the spoken word, and combinations of both. Transcription methods can be subdivided into '' phonemic transcription'', which records the phonemes or units of semantic meaning in speech, and more strict ''phonetic transcription'', which records speech sounds with precision. Methods There are many consistent or standardized romanization systems. They can be classified by their characteristics. A particular system’s characteristics may make it better-suited for various, sometimes contradictory applications, including document retrieval, linguistic analysis, easy readability, faithful representation of pronunciation. * Source, or donor language – A system may be tailored to romanize text from a particular l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic period (), and the Classical period (). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language. From the Hellenistic period (), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek, which is regarded as a separate historical stage, although its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek. There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek, of which Attic Greek developed into Koi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atreus
In Greek mythology, Atreus ( , ; from ἀ-, "no" and τρέω, "tremble", "fearless", gr, Ἀτρεύς ) was a king of Mycenae in the Peloponnese, the son of Pelops and Hippodamia, and the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. Collectively, his descendants are known as Atreidai or Atreidae. Atreus and his twin brother Thyestes were exiled by their father for murdering their half-brother Chrysippus in their desire for the throne of Olympia. They took refuge in Mycenae, where they ascended to the throne in the absence of King Eurystheus, who was fighting the Heracleidae. Eurystheus had meant for their stewardship to be temporary, but it became permanent after his death in battle. According to most ancient sources, Atreus was the father of Pleisthenes, but in some lyric poets (Ibycus, Bacchylides) Pleisthenides (son of Pleisthenes) is used as an alternative name for Atreus himself. Atreides Atreides is a patronymic form of Atreus which refers to one of his sons— ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calchas
Calchas (; grc, Κάλχας, ''Kalkhas'') is an Argive mantis, or " seer," dated to the Age of Legend, which is an aspect of Greek mythology. Calchas appears in the opening scenes of the ''Iliad'', which is believed to have been based on a war conducted by the Achaeans against the powerful city of Troy in the Late Bronze Age. Calchas, a seer in the service of the army before Troy, is portrayed as a skilled augur, Greek ''ionópolos'' ('bird-savant'): "as an augur, Calchas had no rival in the camp." He received knowledge of the past, present, and future from the god, Apollo. He had other mantic skills as well: interpreting the entrails of the enemy during the tide of battle. His mantosune, as it is called in the ''Iliad'', is the hereditary occupation of his family, which accounts for the most credible etymology of his name: “the dark one” in the sense of “ponderer,” based on the resemblance of pondering to melancholy, or being “blue.” Calchas has a long literary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
