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Ovid, Etc. Compare the Kind Term Paper - 787 Words

Ovid, Etc. Compare the Kind Term Paper

Total Length: 787 words ( 3 double-spaced pages)

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But Ovid's "Metamorphosis" complete disconnects morality from human fate, even more radically than in either Hesiod or Plato. In Ovid, almost every person is transformed into one thing or another, regardless of how good or bad they might be in moral terms.

But the sorts of suffering in these tales still have shadings of moral difference, even if bad actions does not cause one's bad fate, as meted out by Zeus. For instance, the cold, shivering sufferings of humans and their inability to resist the evils of Pandora's box in Hesiod's re-telling of the Pandora myth are illustrative of the limits of the transient and inferior human physical condition. Even Prometheus cannot die, but those whom he helped can and will, as decreed through Zeus' creation of Pandora, even with fire -- that is the nature of human vulnerability, human's suffering physical fate. The limits of human philosophical understanding and the suffering this causes via ignorant and misguided governance of the body politic and the delights of the body are seen in Plato's "Republic," as even with fire, humans cannot truly perceive reality, only shadows of true reality on the cave wall that is superficially illuminated by fire. And in Ovid, the lack of control humans exert over fate is at the forefront of human existence.


Thus each suffering represents one of the central conflicts of human life. How do I live, physically, in a world of cold and Pandora's ills ask the suffering humans, of Zeus of Hesiod? How do I conduct myself in an ethically and politically meaningful life, in a way that is commensurate with a true reality, ask the inhabitants of the philosophical cave in Plato, striving for a true "Republic" of the soul and mind? How do I live in an arbitrary world, where not even the gods morality is certain -- where even those who supposedly dwell in the perfect realms of the Platonic forms seem to be sexually rapacious, funny, cruel, and capricious in their dealings with people, asks Ovid? Although the authors might disagree on what is worse -- physical suffering, philosophical ignorance, or being subject to amoral arbitrary fates -- all agree that suffering and subjection to fate is part and parcel of the….....

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https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/ovid-etc-compare-kind-61979