Aristotle, in Politics, said that “he who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god: he is no part of a state. A social i...
Classical plays, for Aristotle, are subject to the three unities: plot, place, and time. In order for a play to be an effective drama, Aristotle believed that these three unities must first be followe...
Reminiscent of the classic epic poems of Greece and ancient Mesopotamia, Beowulf contains all the elements of a tale that echoes through generations and ages. Its hero, after whom the poem is named, j...
Heroic Ideals in “The Knight’s Tale” and “The Illiad”
The Knight’s Tale was written in the 1400s by Geoffrey Chaucer. The Illiad was written nearly 1400 years before the later work. Both of the works tell the tale of a hero on a journey that takes them...
Oedipus The King: Learn It’s Dramatic Irony
Destiny and fate play a critical role in shaping the life of ancient heroes such as Oedipus in “Oedipus the King” and Aeneas in “The Aeneid.” Thus, both Sophocles and Virgil put a particular e...
What is Poetry according to Plato? For Plato, poetry is detrimental to the individual, therefore necessitating its ban from the ideal city. This is because the poet is ultimately not concerned with tr...
Sophocles’ Electra is a play that is full of complex characters. The most complex amongst them is Electra herself, and her mother Clytemnestra. When first introduced to Electra, she is a state of mo...
Aurelius’ remark that “This thou must always bear in mind, what is the nature of the whole, and what is my nature, and how this is related to that, and what kind of a part it is of what kind of a ...