Arabic Poetry

1) While reading The Dove's Necklace I picked up on two themes that interested me.  The first one being passion and the second theme I found in the readings was anger.  I think in any relationship involving two people there is always lots of passion.  When I say passion I mean an extreme love for that other person. Passion is that feeling when you cant even be away from your significant other for more then a minute.  Passion can also relate to physical love too.  Usually when passion occurs between a couple both people involved have it for one another, but in some cases such as the one in the readings only he had passion for her and she was not reciprocating the feelings.  She kept her options open and was still looking for Mr. Right.  I found anger to be a big theme in the readings because the man could not win her love.  He stated that he would basically do anything to be next to her and if he couldn't be then he thought about death. I can understand why he felt angry and would do something so dramatic.  People these days feel the same way when they have feelings for someone, but the other person does not.  They might not threaten death, but they will sure try anything to just be with that person.
2) I thought the themes that I found in the readings carried over in the poetry.  For example the poem on page 40.  The poem talks highly about passion between two people or in this case just one person.  In the poem he expresses his feelings to her.  What I interpreted from it was that he was expressing his love to her and she basically just turned him down.  When she turned him down he became jealous, which brought out his anger and aggravation because he just wants to be with her and she is just looking for Mr. Right.  The other poem that I found is on page 41.  The man tries so hard to make her fall in love with him that he would do anything to just be next to her.  His anger brought him to the idea of even killing himself if he could not be with her.  He also seems to be quite obsessed with her, which is very creepy.  I can now understand why she is not interested in him.  Women always want what they cant have and I think its the same for men.  He's obsessing over her because shes not jumping right into his arms.

Ovid's books 4 and 6

The two myths that I chose to discuss are the Minydes and Arachne.  The myth of Minydes is an interesting one.  It is the tale of three sisters who decided to go against the norm and not worship the Dionysus. All of the women are ordered to stop what ever they are doing to worship Dionysus when it is the appropriate time to do so.  When it was time to do so the three sisters just went about there everyday normal activities including work.  Dionysus did not like this and he punished them by turning them into bats.  He then proceeded to invite them to his ritual ceremony but they declined the offer.  The god got even more mad at them and he himself decided to metamorphose himself into three different animals.  A bull, a lion, and a panther.  This drove the three sisters to a state of madness and they were soon eager to honor the god.  In the myth about Arachne I see similar concepts.   Arachne as well did not like what the goddess of wisdom had to say to her so and did not acknowledge her.  The goddess got mad and challenge Arachne and another weaver to compete.  The mortal ends up making a better tapestry and Arachne is furious because the person was only a mortal.  She rips up the tapestry and destroyed the girls face.  The goddess was then turned into a spider.  There is common theme between these two myths.  The theme that is common in both would be disobeying the gods and going against the norm.  I feel like in both myths the women were determined to be something different from what the gods wanted them to be.  They did not care about rebelling and not honoring the gods.  They lived there life the way they wanted to, until they finally got punished for being I guess a rebel.  They were punished both by being turned into an animal thats what I found to be most common between the two.  Punishing them this way I feel like made sense because they misbehaved when they were there human selves so now that they are these animals either they continue to behave poorly or change.  Another though I had especially relating to the myth of Arachne is that I found it ironic that she was turned into a spider because she weaves and spiders weave webs.

Ovid's Metamorphoses book one and three

1. After reading the text I would interpret the opening as something that is believable.  What I got from it is that the gods did not create the earth or none of those bible stories are true.  Evolution created the world.  I agree that it is chaos because in a way there is no rules.  You cant control the things that happen naturally, but then eventually god stepped in and put his touches on things.  I think the major themes, ideas and concepts that Ovid presents here in book one is love and the creation of just life.  Throughout the book Ovid worked with god to create the world basically.  Each section of the book was a different part of the world like the winds, and the oceans.  Also he created these different ages like the iron age where families would fight and even the gold age where we saw trust and rightfully moral things.  All of book one is an example of life.  People everyday go through things like this where they are fighting with there families or they show complete loyalty to them.  Also book one shows what it's like to have a job, which is just like the real world.  Many people need to obtain jobs in order to survive and provide.  Another theme that I found present in the book was love.  Like falling in love and having to pursue that person you have fallen for.  In the book Apollo's pursuit for Daphne did not quite work out successfully.

2. The initial myths of this text raised similar issues to those we found in Genesis.  I found the stories to be quite similar actually.  Both texts talked about the creation of the world, like how Adam and eve came to be and the garden.  Also in the book of Genesis the people had to endure a lot of test.  Test about loyalty and family.  They did not care if they killed a brother or two.  I feel that is how the book of Ovid is.  The way he explain the creation of the world is similar but not exactly the same, but the people in the stories are definitely faced with test to prove family bonds.  I think the most original thing that Ovid presents in his myths is that when he explains the creation of the world he has broken it up into different sections.  Like first came this and then that and he said that god was not completely responsible for the creation.  Also when he explains the different ages like, iron, gold, and silver.  I found that to be unique and more realistic to what real life is like.

3. As simple as this question would be to answer I found it not to be that simple.  When you think of someone falling in love you think its between two people, but in book 3 that was not quite the case.  At first he attempted to fall in love with another human being but got turned away.  Narcissus's mentor told him that before he could fall in love with someone else he needed to fall in love with himself.  He fell in love with his reflection when he looked into the pool of water.  I really like the meaning of this because it is true.  You can't fall in love and give your 100 percent attention on someone else without knowing your own true self and being comfortable with who you are.  Those are the building blocks to being in a relationship.  Imagine if you had insecurities going into a relationship or could never trust someone due to past relationships.  Your current relationship would be a disaster.  I could also understand why this might be bad thing loving yourself over someone else.  In a way you become selfish and to into yourself.  There might not even be enough room for you to love someone else because your so self involved with your own life.