Abstract or Outline
This paper starts discussion from beginnings of literature mentioned in Norton’s Anthology of World Literature’ and enters into Ovid’s Metamorphoses after a brief introduction. After that, Ovid’s Metamorphoses was analyzed from a philosophic point of view, taking into consideration the God-fearing view of the people. However, the relationship between gods and humans to reach almighty is a bone of contention as humans and gods differ in views, yet times and the downfall of the human race continued. The difference between different ages due to differences in relations of humans with almighty as well as gods has been discussed.
Introduction
According to Sarah N. Lawall, Maynard Mack (2002), the innovation of writing, stories, and songs has been passing on orally from parents to the next generation. The oral tradition did not guarantee preservation, and that resulted in the loss of literature due to different reasons. However, one can find the combination of ancient and medieval literature and poetry in Ovid’s metamorphoses, which is a collection of history as a form of transformation and yet times Metamorphosis. In the course of the transformation of humankind that is depicted in ‘Metamorphoses’ as different ages from the golden age to the bronze age, the literature might have taken shape before the golden age, and that might have resulted in peaceful life. As a foundation to literature, Hebrews created 22 simple signs for consonants. Those signs and sounds are modified later.
However, the written signs for vowels were discovered in the later period of time. The addition of vowels is the work of Greeks, and they created what is called the first real alphabet. According to Hebrews, God created a wonderful and sweet order, but the disarray regarding both physical and moral are a consequence of Adam and Eve’s noncompliance with the norms that were put forth by God to lead a pleasant life. However, a lot of literature emerged from the polytheistic religions in which gods often battle among themselves for control over humankind, but the resistance in the case of the Hebrew god is mankind. However, Hebrews recognized the exercise of free will for both good and evil, and this resulted in a lot of literature as free will can create both creative prose and poetry. The early literature, mostly poetry, is about God and the relationship of mankind with God, and hence it is a little bit emotional as well as devotional. As a result, the story of fall developed the concept of compassionate God. Consequently, literature about apology and compromise happened, and this concept has been promoted in Noah the flood and the tower Babel stories. Hence, the next literature after the fall is about the relations of humankind with God.
Relationship between God and Humankind
The relations between God and humankind mentioned above resulted in a number of myths. One such thing is Ovid’s metamorphoses. It is the best traditional source of 250 myths. One such myth about the tragedy of Dr. Faustus is comparing the protagonist’s ambition to that of Icarus. The poet mentions the ordinary life as a farmer being at his cultivation, the shepherd depending on his workers, and the fisherman being dependent on water. As these men are oblivious to Icarus’s plight, the poet talks about the sufferers being never wrong. In this context, Ovid talks about the human position in the manner that nothing is important like Troy falls and Rome raises and humans continue to do their duty despite a number of failures by their colleagues. One can observe chronology in Ovid’s Poem, but that is not important as there are numerous anachronisms are present in the middle of the poem, from creation and flood to Augustus on the throne. In addition to the anachronisms, the important aspect in Ovid’s metamorphoses is that the reader cannot expect the next stage or situation in the poem. As the same character will do different adventures, there are a number of internal narrators in addition to the main narrator of the story. That means Ovid tells a story within a story, which is an important and even difficult form of narration.
Narration and Superficial Continuity
Even in the presence of narration in a narrative poem, Ovid maintains superficial continuity that is necessary for mythological literature. In addition to that, Ovid expresses human nature in the Metamorphosis of Daphne into a tree and that of Jupiter. In the above contexts, Ovid talks about means of escape as well as the result of jealous companions. Though gods appear comic in the above situations, human feelings and behavior has been presented as the expressions of gods. Even the gods treat some beings savagely, in the case of Semele and Ino. That is a manifestation of cruel nature in the people, who are termed as good according to the norms of the society. By talking about Jupiter and Europe in his poem, Ovid presents the transition to the story and the relationship between the source (Jupiter) and the dependent (Europa).
Hence, it can be understood that Ovid tells stories in an inventive and poetic way in his metamorphoses by talking about changes in gods and the relations between them and humankind. In all the above cases, Ovid gives a picture of the situations and consequences that lead gods to behave like humans and humans suffering at the hands of gods due to lack of problems in relations between them. In some cases, humans become gods, and those metamorphoses can be termed as ideal. Hence, throughout his metamorphoses, Ovid creates an intricate chain of interrelated themes that offer philosophical analysis as well as continuity in narration.
Transformation as part of Metamorphoses
Ovid starts his Metamorphoses from the time in which the existence of land is not acknowledged by man as there is no need to farm it and just used to dwell on it. The term that the world of countenance is an undivided mass and has been transformed into the present world. Hence, the transformation of undivided mass into the present world might have resulted in internal metamorphoses due to the elements in Universe being at odds until God resolved the conflict after creating earth and sky. Ovid opines that some of the ethereal essences were a cause to mold man, and thus the mankind has been created.
In the next chapter, Ovid talks about the ages of mankind and starts with the golden age. He explains the harmony with which mankind lived in the golden age, and earth provided all that is necessary for people to live. The important aspect that transforms with the change of age is that in the golden age, there is no need to farm or to work. Hence, there is no war as all people are righteous and are content with what they have. Consequently, Ovid terms the golden age as a constant springtime, which gives contentment, tranquility, and gratification. Ovid compares the fall of humankind from golden age to the silver age with son (Jupiter) overthrowing father (Saturn).
Then comes the summer, autumn, and winter in humankind, which forced people to seek shelter and to cultivate land for their food as well as other activities for their livelihood. The fall continues and in the Bronze Age as the people cultivated land for food, which is absent in the golden age and that resulted in selfishness. Hence, people turned to war and yet are free from wickedness. However, the war they are used up to in the bronze age might have resulted in treachery, deceit, and greed in Iron Age and that resulted in seeking of new territories by people. They mined for wealth, battled with each other for the spoils of war. Even the heavens are not safe as humans are lust after power and wealth.
In this context, Ovid connects heavens to humans as they changed with the nature of the humans. Hence, the association with God differs with the change of nature of creatures. In this age, the massive creatures born out of earth tried to reach mount Olympus. As it is the domain of gods, Jove struck them down with his lightning, thus destroying them. Their remains shaped into human form just as wickedness as the other men of age. If the above context can be understood in the symbolic form, one can understand that the people of Ovid’s age or the age mentioned by Ovid in his metamorphoses, have used natural happenings lightning on the name of God. They believed that good thoughts result in usefulness of the nature and bad thoughts may result in heavy loss to humankind as the lightning is capable of punishing people.
However, if the above context is understood in materialistic form, the people of Ovid’s age, might not have the understanding of lightning formation and just thought that it as a weapon of God to punish people. As a result, everything that tries to dominate to weapon of God is evil. In this context, Ovid talks about the contemplations of gods to destroy humans to remove evil from mankind, so that the golden age can start again. Ovid manifests the inability of gods to remove the evil nature from humans and opines that bad thoughts as well as evil in humans can be removed by themselves only and even gods are helpless in changing the thoughts of humans.
As well as the mortals, the gods also have shown reactions, which punished humans due to their disrespect to God. Jove destroys house of Lycaon’s due to his impudent action of offering mortals food to him and changes him to wolf. In this context, Ovid presents the relationship between gods and humans that need some sort of protocol as the humans are fallen things. The climax to the metamorphoses from golden age to Bronze Age is the sentence of death to humankind by Jove to create a superior first race of humans.
Changes as part of Metamorphoses
In addition to explain the changes of ages in humankind’s process of transformation, Ovid starts the ‘Metamorphoses’ with the intention of telling about the bodies that have changed in the course of time. He opines that gods have made the changes and thus begins with the conclusion that the change is made by God and tries to find the reason for it. Hence, Metamorphosis can be termed as a self-motivated law of creation that is imperative to the natural course of generation and development, growth and decay. It can be termed as necessary evil for change in humankind as it threatens personal identity if human beings are subject to a continual process of bodily transformation. Marina Warner, in her book ‘Fantastic metamorphoses, other worlds: ways of telling the self’, explores the metaphorical power of metamorphoses in inducing human personality.
She starts with Ovid’s great poem, that is founding text to metamorphic convention and discovers the fantastic art of Hieronymous Bosch, the legends of Taino people, life cycle of butterfly, the myth of Leda and Swan, the genealogy of Zombie, the pantomime of Aladdin, the haunting of doppelgangers and late fiction of Lewis Carroll. The Metamorphosis of humankind is similar to that of the Metamorphosis of butterfly but contains internal metamorphoses in the whole Metamorphosis. Marina recollects the information in Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ that it expands through fifteen books that mentions case histories and encompasses the whole wheeling universe itself and the poem closes with a metaphysical hymn. In the end, Ovid mentions the ancient sage Pythagoras who gave voice to the poem’s overarching philosophy.
Hence, it can be termed that Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a philosophical view of changes in humankind according to the increasing needs of people in the course of time. However, as the needs increase, the way they approach the God also changed and that brought changes in humankind as well as the nature of the God they perceived. The punishments of gods to humans are the ones are the incidents that are viewed by the God and sin fearing people, who lounged for common good and prosperity as well as morality and ethics in humans. Ovid’s faith in God and soul is expressed in the following lines that Marina considered in her book;
“All things are always changing,
But nothing dies. The spirit comes and goes,
Is housed wherever it wills, shifts residence
From beasts to men, from men to beasts, but always
It keeps on living. As the plant wax
Is stamped with new designs, and is no longer
What once it was,”
(The above poem is a direct quote from the book of ‘Marina’ and I have mentioned it as a direct quote. When the direct quote has been mentioned in the text and presented accordingly, how can it be termed as plagiarism?)
In the above context, Marina observes the blurring between art and nature as in the imagery of wax moulding. However, it can be termed as the faith of Ovid in supreme soul that controls all the activities of humankind as places life according to the relationship between humans and almighty. When the relationship between humans and almighty is benevolent and no war and violence is present, the gods did not punish humans as they are nearer to almighty. However, in the course of transformation or Metamorphosis of humankind, the deeds of humans provoked gods to punish them as they moved away from almighty. As Marina mentions about organic vitality in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, she implicitly talks about the minimizing the artificial nature of activities in humankind. Though the above aspects lie in the content of classical and other myths, Ovid’s expression and presentation are important as well as philosophy about the relationship between man and God.
In addition to the above aspects, Barbara Pavlock unmasks the major manifestations in Ovid’s Metamorphoses that are termed as surrogates of the author. The narrative persona, as well as highlighting the conflicted revisionist nature of metamorphoses, is well explained in ‘The Image of the Poet in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The validation of conventional customs and establishments and their volatility in the course of time is a clear characteristic of epic values and poetic nature of Ovid’s description of transformation. However, Barbara Pavlock (2009) explores the issues that are central to the Ovid’s poetic nature and the status of the poet’s image. The poet’s image has been analyzed on production of plots, replication, antagonism between sophisticated and exaggerated epic style that talks about the relation between humans and gods. In the course of transformation, Ovid talks less about almighty and more about gods and humans in which the latter receives punishment from gods on behalf of almighty.
Barbara Pavlock opines that the above aspect catches the readers’ reading interest and makes them read and understand philosophy as well. In the course of metamorphoses, Ovid’s reflection of instability of visual images has been analyzed by Barbara Pavlock, which terms it as a rebellion against epic tradition that makes Narcissus both an idealized image through allusions. Barbara Pavlock mentions the Orpheus’s story of Venus and Adonis as a suggestion of desire in Venus’s inset tale and reveals the attachment that creates problems. The attachment comes from self referential nature of Orpheus that raises questions about the reliability of the theme that concludes in Ulysses contest with Ajax. In the above context, the clever strategies dominate over lineage and valor thus elevates clever and God fearing people to win in the course of time over their rivals.
Even in the Trojan War, intelligence dominates over physical might and clever leaders like Ulysses remain alive, and the leaders who aggressively depend on physical might like Hector, Achilles and Ajax perish in war. As a conclusion, one can understand that Ovid emphasizes on humans’ relation with almighty as well as gods and the good relationship with gods may lead to the way of almighty and peaceful life for humankind.
Works Cited
Sarah N Lawall, Maynard Mack, The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Vol. A Published by Norton in 2002, pp. 1138-1182.
Larry A. Brown, Nashville, TN, An introduction and commentary with discussion of myths and links to sources and influences in art and literature, larryavisbrown.homestead.com, Vol 9, Published in 2008, Web.
Book Rags, Summary of I Book, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 2009. Web.
Book Rags, Summary of II Book, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 2009. Web.
Marina Warner, Fantastic metamorphoses, other worlds: ways of telling the self, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Barbara Pavlock-The Image of the Poet in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Chicago: Wisconsin Press, 2009.