Arabic Poetry

When I read "The Dove's Necklace", the assigned reading for this week, all of the themes were typing back to a common motif of love; most of the descriptions were very in depth. The most common message I received throughout the whole poem is to always support your partner in everything they choose to do and how people morph into the person their lover wants to see them as instead of being their true self. When a person has a lover, they tend to change into the person that their lover wants to see them as. This can be physical changes but also personality changes as well. For instance, a boyfriend can want his blonde girlfriend to have short brown hair and she will cut and dye her hair to make him satisfied. Also, he may not like bubbly, over the top characteristics so she may tone down her own personality to make him happy and accept her more. This is very common in today's society and I have experienced first hand changing for someone you are connected with. In addition to people morphing into someone they're not, people also will support their lover until the end, even if it means risking their own morals or even lying. As Samantha said, couples tend to help each other lie to help the other one not fail in something. For example, couples lying on the stand to back each other up. it is breaking the law but that is what people do in the name of love and in the name of what they believe is right in their eyes, their partner's eyes, and their own relationship. Due to these two common themes, I believe love is the most powerful emotion one can have over another. People do crazy things in the name of love and will continue to to get love if they do not have anyone to love. We see it everyday in the news, in our own lives, and in society as a whole. Love changes people for the worse, but sometimes for the better.

Islamic Art

Early Islamic art was influenced greatly by the Byzantine empire and the Sasanian empire as well. When the Byzantine and Sasanian empires had their own artwork, they progressed little by little into Muslim patronage. A good, traditional example of these empires showing how they progressed with Islamic art is a stucco relief plaque, with a king riding a horse in the mountains. This image was very common in early islamic art and with the byzantine empire as well. Glass work was also common but was influenced with Roman styles. During the medieval times, the Islamic empire was gaining power and was moving into various parts of Italy and Africa. Different religious backgrounds influenced many forms of art because within these areas, there was a lot of diversity with religions. Countries also were at different standards of living. For example, Egypt was in the Golden Age, where they had vast amounts of gold, jewels, and and crystals. In the later times, the late medieval era, Chinese culture started to affect Islamic art. There were more colors and metal involved within the artwork. The art had a better sense of life. Mongolian culture also affected the artwork because their art depicted fantasy items, such as clouds, dragons, and various flowers. In addition, scripts were inclusive as well, especially Shananama.

Ovid Day two

The myths about Tereus and Medusa are very similar because they both seem to represent going against authority or their family due to only seeing their way as the right one, and then receiving punishment. In Tereus's story, he is a tyrant. He marries Procne, the daughter of the king of Athens, after he and his people take over. A few years into their marriage, Tereus allows Procne to see her sister, Philomela. However, when his soldiers bring back her sister, Tereus rapes her over and over again. Philomela then says "Now that I have no shame, I will proclaim it. Given the chance, I will go where the people are, and Tell everybody". To make matters worse, he then cuts off her tongue so she can't tell anyone what happened. It is a very gruesome scene to read, nonetheless, and his morals clearly are not in touch with himself. Revenge gets him back though when Philomela made a picture for Procne. Procne then killed her only son and served him as a MEAL to Tereus. Tereus eats him and finds out he just ate his son. The three of them then turn into birds. Researching this further, I found that Procne was turned into a nightingale, a bird that sings a sad song, Philomela into a swallow, a bird with no song, and Tereus was turned into a hawk, a very violent predator. Even though the story is not directly related to going against the gods, this part of the book shows a side of deception. Tereus went against his own family and raped his wife's sister and then mutilated her to ensure silence. However, Procne committed sin as well by killing her only son and having Tereus eat him, unknowingly he became a cannibal. These things all relate to the fact of deception and ultimately, going again the gods. I know they went against the gods because I'm pretty sure the Gods wouldn't want a family to rape, mutilate, and cook/eat each other.

The story of Medusa tells a story of deception but not towards family, instead, towards the Gods. Medusa was portrayed as a very pretty woman. This made her have her heads in the clouds and think she is above everyone else. She even thought she was above the Gods, and they knew this. Obviously this angered them. The Gods made Athena talk to her. This only egged on Medusa, because Medusa then went on a whole rant saying how Athena was jealous of her beauty. Since Athena was a God and Medusa was dumb, Athena took away Medusa's beauty and made her into a disgusting creature. This creature is the one we typically see as having snakes for hair. This story was relating to deception because if Medusa was humble and respected her Gods, she would have been able to keep her beauty. However, since she was arrogant and ignorant, she caused her own pain.

Ovid (Books 1 and 3)

1. The first book of Ovid was very very confusing to me. I was very lost because I did not get any background information such as characters, location, time, and everything like that. I felt that I could not even understand the text or even the foundation of the text for that matter. I felt like I was just thrown into a random page of a book and know nothing about it. I had to read the first book about 5 times to finally start getting it. I know the title of the book was about the creation of the world, which was the ONLY reason I started to understand my analysis of the first book/song. Therefore, I feel Ovid's story about creation is very similar to the first stories we read in the beginning of the semester, Genesis. For the first example, they created the Earth, land and water, as one. So, the stories of creation of the world were very similar. However, the biggest similarity between the two was the fact that both "authors" feel the human race was a huge mistake and road block for the world. In Genesis, God tried to flood the earth. In Book 1 of Ovid's Methamorphoses, he floods the earth to. However, both stories leave a couple survivors in hope of changing the course of creation.

5. In Book 3, Narcissus falls in love with "someone". However, this person technically is not real. Narcissus's true love is...actually himself. He sees his reflection all the time in water and that's when he sees the person he loves. His deepest desire was to have someone to love but when he tries to reach for this loved one, the person/image is disturbed due to splashing the water around. It's a bit sad actually. I like what Emily said on her blog about people generally falling in love with people who are similar to themselves. People try to find a lover with similar interests so Narcissus goes to the extreme, obviously, and falls in love with himself. Maybe he can't love others because he can't love himself? As you can see in the third book, there is an underlying self-hatred going on with Narcissus.

Plato's Republic

I feel one of the main focuses in Plato's Republic is the switch from oligarchy to a republic. Oligarchy is a government by a small group of people and a republic is when the power of the state rests in the hands of the citizens and representatives that are chosen by the people as well. In our society, people like republics because they feel they have more of a say and are not being "bossed around". However, Plato said that men wanted to be as wealthy as they could, so they wanted to switch to a republican government. I think this was a bit odd because nowadays, oligarchy,communism, dictatorship, tyranny, and fascism type of governments have more separation of classes and unequally distributed wealth. Therefore, I found this statement to be unjust and shows how far society really has come around.

Another interesting concept is how the better rulers back then are the ones that have a sort of warrior-like personality. It reminds me almost of the spartans. They go based on their social norms and values. Values, for example, that have a strong tie to fighting. Warrior is very high on the social ladder than farmers, homemakers, and workers. I feel that this has also changed during our time period and back then, they found the smartest people to be the warriors with their tactics.