Answer to Question #166231 in History for Daijah M Robinson

Question

Write a long paragraph on EACH of the following concepts/characters/passages. If it is a character, make sure to describe the who, what, when, where, and also the why important, ESPECIALLY in regards to the theme of the course and the content of the work. If it is a concept, make sure to explain how that concept fits into the appropriate texts, what the larger meaning of the concept is for the course, and characters who may be associated with the concept. If it is a passage, write out a full explication of the passage, how it reflects a theme that may run throughout the work, how it demonstrates the voice of the character, how it addresses a particular concept, etc. Make sure to use direct references to the texts, quoting passages where appropriate.

 

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1. The Pederastic Relationship
2. Women in The Symposium
3. Common Love (specifically, but also in reference to Celestial Love)
4. The Use of Myth in Plato
5. Mental Pregnancy
6. Diotima’s Concept of Wisdom and Beauty
7. “What I did (no excuses!) was mess up/ Her new coiffure. Like that, in disarray,/ It looked splendidly windswept.”
8. Impotence
9. The Witch in The Amores
10. Ovid and Class

Answer 1

1.The Pederastic Relationship

This is a sexual relationship between an adult man and a pubescent or adolescent boy. The term pederasty is primarily used to refer to historical practices of certain cultures, particularly ancient Greece and ancient Rome. Greek love is a term originally used by classicists to describe the primarily homoerotic customs, practices, and attitudes of the ancient Greeks. It was frequently used as a euphemism for homosexuality and pederasty.

2.Women in The Symposium

In ancient Greece, the symposium was a part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was accompanied by music, dancing, recitals, or conversation. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara. Symposia are depicted in Greek and Etruscan art that shows similar scenes.

3.Common Love (specifically, but also in reference to Celestial Love)

Pausanias points out two types of love: Common Love and Heavenly Love, with Heavenly Love being the better of the two. Common Love occurs between a man and a woman or a man and a young boy, while Heavenly Love occurs between an older man and a younger man.

4.The Use of Myth in Plato

The purpose of a myth was to provide the hearer with a truth which the audience then interpreted for themselves within the value system of their culture. Mythology tries to answer the most difficult and the most basic questions of human existence. Similarly, Plato is both a myth teller and a myth maker. In general, he uses myth to inculcate in his less philosophical readers noble beliefs and/or teach them various philosophical matters that may be too difficult for them to follow if expounded in a blunt, philosophical discourse.

5.Mental Pregnancy

In rare cases, people believe they are pregnant, only to find out that their symptoms were caused not by pregnancy, but by something else entirely. False pregnancy, clinically termed pseudocyesis, is the belief that you are expecting a baby when you are not really carrying a child. Depression and anxiety are the most common mental health problems in pregnancy. These affect about 10 to 15 out of every 100 pregnant women. Just like at other times in life, you can have many different types of mental illness and the severity can vary.

6.Diotima’s Concept of Wisdom and Beauty

The name Diotima means one who honors or is honored by Zeus, and her Mantinean origin is reminiscent of the root "mantis", which would suggest an association with prophecy. The Greek form also includes the sound nike: Diotima Mantinike as a pun in Greek would thus sound like "Diotima from Prophet-victory". In the Symposium, she is implied to be a priestess or prophetess and is said to be from the Peloponnesian city of Mantinea, which was allied against Athens at the time of the dialogue - though one version of the manuscript preferred in old readings called her a mantic woman, or seeress, rather than a woman from Mantinea.

7.“What I did (no excuses!) was mess up/ Her new coiffure. Like that, in disarray,/ It looked splendidly windswept.”

8.Impotence

Impotence occurs when you are unable to achieve an erection, maintain an erection, or ejaculate on a consistent basis. It’s used interchangeably with erectile dysfunction (ED). Several factors can contribute to the condition, including both emotional and physical disorders. It is caused by cardiac-related conditions, taking medications and endocrine diseases among other causes.

9.The Witch in The Amores

This is the longest of all the Amores, and occupies the central position in Book 1. It is, therefore, an important poem, and it is intriguingly different. The central speech, by far the longest speech Ovid gives to any female character in the Amores, is delivered by an anti-heroine. Dipsas is an old woman and a lena, a stock character of the comic stage variously translated as “bawd,” “procuress,” “brothel-keeper,” or “madam.” A better translation might be “panderess” (if the word were used these days) or perhaps “enabler,” since Dipsas is not actually an employer of prostitutes; she is an aged dependent and confidante of the poet’s girlfriend, presumably a slave or freedwoman, and perhaps originally the girlfriend’s nurse. She is now trying to control the girl’s sex life, for entirely mercenary reasons.

10.Ovid and Class

This exercise bridges mythology and psychology somewhat and can be effectively done either at the beginning of the semester or before the start of Ovid. Ask students to complete the following sentences. (Qualify the first with a skeptical definition of the New Age field of past life regression and its examples of people with irrational claustrophobia, or leg pain with no physiological explanation, who discover through past life regression therapy that they are the reincarnations of people who died in elevator accidents or getting limbs blown off in WWI.