mythology timeless tales of gods and heroes help

Mythology as shared in this book told of youth, beauty, and delight as mankind let go of superstition, magic, and dread. The incomprehensiveness of unknown omnipotence was softened and fantastic or irrational fear began to ease into a sense of understanding. Fantasy shifted into rational thought even for gods and goddesses, which gave levity to reverence and deities were thought of as companions so fear would yield to adoration with the arena of respect bringing harmony and balance in how those Greeks and Romans worshipped. Unlike Egyptian gods with features of animals, Roman and Greek gods took human form entirely and except for size and power were easily identifiable as beings similar to our own in appearance and form instead of resemblance to cats, birds, or mixtures of varieties of animal form in combination.

The literature of these ancient poets and story tellers helped to position mankind's importance in the universe, as astronomy, science, medicine, and interaction took place on frontiers previously left to the gods. No longer was this exclusively the privilege of royalty, priests, and wizards or sorceresses. Reason took the place of terror, mystery, and magic and although at times life still had brutality and savagery, the ancient people heard and read the traditions passed down as mythology shared conquest and intellect, artistic ability, and political order. In this freedom, what today we consider strange, to those being introduced to Roman and Greek mythology as is found in this book, their world was full of beauty and awe. Ancient Greeks and Romans of this time period enjoyed the imagination of the mythology prevalent in this new era of thought, allowing themselves to revel in the possibilities for personification and animation that began to occur anywhere, anytime, about anything. Ignorance became less common than education, instead of the other way around.

Mythology of this time period affected how ancient civilizations interacted with nature and each other, based upon the trend away from how past beliefs held little distinction between myth and reality. Interspersed are illustrations, with Greek and Roman emphasis, which add to the author's effort to familiarize any reader with the way men and women felt, believed, and lived according to what influence the ancient stories gave to conduct, architecture, ambitions, and how those stories fueled the competitive spirit. In this book are the gods of myth, the Titans, the Olympians, gods of water, underworld, and the earth with heroes, gods of flora and fauna, lovers, gods of adventure, tales such as the Trojan War, families of the gods, gods of royalty and others less fortunate, as well as including Norse mythology. Her goal was to leave distinctions intact among ancient authors such as Hesiod, Homer, Pindar, Ovid and others so that the classic myths retain immortality without seeking to flavor the recounting by her own style or attempt to entertain the less initiated reader. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice.Įdith Hamilton observes the difficulty of writing Shakespeare's 'King Lear' on the level of 'Cinderella,' as well as reversing that same endeavor. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice.

Mythology timeless tales of gods and heroes help