2015.10.7 - Week 4

A. Vocabularies to Know
1) provoke: to cause a reaction, especially a negative one
1-1) evoke: to make someone remember something or feel an emotion
2) anxious: worried and nervous
2-1) anxiety: an uncomfortable feeling of nervousness or worry about something that is happening or might happen in the future
3) initial:  of or at the beginning
3-1) initiate: to cause something to begin
4) rage: (a period of) extreme or violent anger
4-1) outrageous: shocking and morally unacceptable; describes something or someone that is shocking because they are unusual or strange
5) vulnerable: able to be easily physically, emotionally, or mentally hurt, influenced or attacked
6) snobbish: like a snob
B. Introduction of Hephaestus

Hephaestus is the Greek god of blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes. Hephaestus' Roman equivalent is Vulcan. In Greek mythology, Hephaestus was the son of Zeus and Hera, the king and queen of the gods. In another version, he was Hera's parthenogenous child, rejected by his mother because of his deformity and thrown out of heaven and down to earth

As a smithing god, Hephaestus made all the weapons of the gods in Olympus. He served as the blacksmith of the gods, and was worshipped in the manufacturing and industrial centers of Greece, particularly Athens. The cult of Hephaestus was based in Lemnos. Hephaestus' symbols are a smith's hammer, anvil, and a pair of tongs.

C. Search " Epic poetry"

An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Milman Parry and Albert Lord have argued that the Homeric epics, the earliest works of Western literature, were fundamentally an oral poetic form. These works form the basis of the epic genre in Western literature. Nearly all Western epic self-consciously presents itself as a continuation of the tradition begun by these poems. Classical epic employs dactylic hexameter and recounts a journey, either physical (as typified by Odysseus in the Odyssey) or mental (as typified by Achilles in the Iliad) or both. Epics also tend to highlight cultural norms and to define or call into question cultural values, particularly as they pertain to heroism.

Another type of epic poetry is epyllion , which is a brief narrative poem with a romantic or mythological theme. The term, which means "little epic", came into use in the nineteenth century. It refers primarily to the erudite, shorter hexameter poems of the Hellenistic period and the similar works composed at Rome from the age of the neoterics; to a lesser degree, the term includes some poems of the English Renaissance, particularly those influenced by Ovid. The most famous example of classical epyllion is perhaps Catullus 64.

Some of the most famous examples of epic poetry include the ancient Indian Ramayana and Mahabharata, the Ancient Greek Iliad and the Odyssey, Dante's Divine Comedy, John Milton's Paradise Lost, and the Portuguese Lusiads.