Cyclops

'U Ciclopu di Pirandello è la riduzione in dialetto siciliano del dramma satiresco di Euripide. Tra le cosiddette opere minori, 'U Ciclopu non è solo una traduzione di servizio, ma un'opera pirandelliana a tutti gli effetti. Nell'articolo si esamina, attraverso la collazione con i modelli (il testo di Euripide è mediato dall'italiano di Romagnoli), in che modo Pirandello intervenga sullo statuto paratragico del dramma satiresco, portandolo nei fatti, attraverso alcune sapienti scelte linguistiche, ad un registro totalmente farsesco.

This is my annotated translation of ODY 9.  I took three semesters of Homeric Greek with the late Anthony Bolloch at Berkeley, ILIAD 1, 6  and ODY 1, 6, 9 (not all of each book).  Mistakes are mine, not his, but we went over this translation pretty well.

The cyclops Poliphemus has had different treatments throughout the greek ancient literature. This study analyses this character in the Book IX in Homer's The Odyssey, in Euripides' The cyclops, in Cyclops or Galatea of Philoxenus of Cythera and Theocritus' Idyll XI, in order to observe its evolution from a cruel monster to a sensitive being that suffer by an unrequited
love of Galatea.

My presentation at the very interesting research seminar "Representations of repulsion in the ancient world", organized by my colleague Prof. Demos Spatharas at the University of Crete.

The comic poets of ancient Athens, most notably Cratinus, Crates and Aristophanes, employed a range of techniques in order to incorporate the repulsive and the disgusting into their comic fictions and utilize these emotions as elements of the comic plot and as basic instruments for the generation of laughter. Cratinus, following perhaps Epicharmus, tries to masquerade the elemental repulsion caused by the Cyclops' mythical cannibalism under the parody of gourmandism and contemporary culinary literature. Crates and Aristophanes use disgust as a powerful factor of the comic effect, when they dramatize archetypical dark themes of fairytale and horror, such as monsters and dragon-slaying. The elements of disgust, especially the disgust provoked by the filthy secretions of the human body and the by-products of digestion, are then employed in order to undermine the terror inspired by the monster and in order to turn the horrific spectacle into something despicable and laughable. Crates seems to have used this comic strategy purely for the purposes of entertainment, but Aristophanes invests it with political messages and subjugates it to the ideological polemics of his satirical oeuvre. In Aristophanic comedy the monster is almost always identified with the accursed populist demagogues, such as Cleon and his clique. The elements of disgust thus serve to dispel the fear for these formidable figures of Athenian politics and inspire repulsion and loathing for their corruption.

ÖZET Hemen hemen tüm dinsel inançların temel uygulamalarından birisi olarak karşımıza çıkan kurban, genel manasıyla Tanrı'ya yakınlaşmak için kesilen hayvan anlamına gelir. Kanlı ve kansız olmak üzere iki ana uygulama şeklinde icra edilen kurban ritüeli, genel olarak tüm dinlerin en temel uygulamalarından birisi olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Türklerin de tarih boyunca kutsal saydıkları her nesneye sundukları kurban, temel dinî uygulamalardan birisi olmakla birlikte ekseriyetle çeşitlilik arz etmektedir. Oğuz Türklerinin eşsiz eserlerinden birisi olarak karşımıza çıkan Dede Korkut anlatmalarında da kurban uygulamalarının izlerine rastlamak mümkündür. Peki, bu uygulamalar arasında insan kurbanı olgusunun izleri de görülmekte midir? Basat'ın Tepegöz'ü öldürdüğü anlatmada ritüel bir insan kurbanı var mıdır? Bu makalede, insan kurbanı ile ilgili soruların yanıtı tafsilatlı bir şekilde aranacaktır. İnsan kurbanı ile ilgili antropolojik düşünceler ve tarihsel seyirler bağlam olarak ele alınarak Türklerde insan kurbanı olgusunun olup olmadığı, araştırmacıların karşıt düşünceleriyle birlikte verilmeye çalışılacaktır. Bu genel değerlendirmelerden sonra da Oğuz Türklerine ait Dede Korkut anlatmalarında insan kurbanının izleri aranacaktır.

This is a book about two seemingly separate but interrelated strands in the history of western thought: the myth of the Cyclops, and the story of selfhood. The Cyclops is well-known in modernity as a mythical monster with a single eye. This story goes back thousands of years, with the most famous version by the ancient Greek poet Homer in the Odyssey. It is this general story of the Cyclops that interests me and forms the backbone of this book, as I detail the ways that this ancient myth moves through time, from its ancient Paleolithic roots, to Greek and Roman times, through the medieval period, and into modernity with comics and the Percy Jackson novels. In the following chapters, I explore the many ways that the Cyclops myth is re-told in different periods, in something of a grand exploration in comparative storytelling.
Alongside the Cyclops myth, my other major interest is self- hood, namely how we understand our own identity. By analyzing and comparing the different Cyclops myths, I ask and try to answer some of the big questions in philosophy and the humanities. In particular, I want to know why we think about ourselves the way that we do. Where did our notion of “the self” come from? Where and how did it change along the winding course of history? In this way, we can think of selfhood as the payoff for reading and comparing the Cyclops myth so widely. While the many myths of the Cyclops are interesting and worthwhile in their own right, I think that the comparison of these myths can suggest answers for some important questions around selfhood, humanity, and society today.

The one-eyed giant has dominated popular imagination for thousands of years. The Cyclops combines two monstrous elements into one: a humanoid of colossal physique and a physical abnormality that only rarely occurs in real life. The most famous Cyclops, the cannibalistic shepherd of the Ancient Greek Homeric myth isn't the only one. He is one of many that appear not just in Greek mythology, but in other cultures throughout the ancient world. In this work we shall discuss the possible origin behind the one-eyed monstrous giant, using both mythology and paleontology.

The past inability to translate Etruscan texts has meant that the interpretation of Etrucan art has been mostly speculation. This interpretation has been made even more difficult because this was the time when new demon imagery (Cyclops, Skadi) not seen in the past was being introduced as Etruscan religious culture was changing from the magical Ancient Pagan Paradigm to the lordified dualist framework of today's religions. Etruscan texts were written in Alphabetic Akkadian which was the common written language of trade and temple all around the Mediterranean prior to its replacement by Greek and Latin. Etruscan texts are distinguished from Greek texts by their writing direction with Etruscan texts written from right to left and Greek texts written from left to right. The motivation behind these tomb and pottery texts was an ongoing debate about the cause droughts. The Tomb of Orcus supports the use of human emotion magic as a corrective practice while the Tomb of Shields is anti-magic. The life class deities mentioned in these texts are the top layer source god Alu, middle layer network god Hu, network editing and crescent moon goddess Ayu, and life form manifester (revealer) god Yahu. The magical motion class deities mentioned are the top layer full moon source god Su and the middle layer hermaphrodite deity Thu.

Acro : derived from Greek 'Akros' which means : topmost, highest / Polis : Pole, citadel, top of a stake, pale, pal-ace, platform, top of tree 
The Acropolis in Athens is an ancient temple site located high up on a rocky cliff in the middle of Athens. Its turbulent history is long -in human life-span terms -and dates back to 6000 BC. It has been the focus of a myriad of texts written by all types of authors, but oddly enough, the rock that bears the site has scarcely been mentioned. This paper intends to fill that gap, to pro-vide readers and visitors alike with a view of another much longer history, dating back to the Upper Cretaceous age, some 70 million years ago, when the rocks that underlie the rocky crest of the sacred hill were deposited in the delta of a mighty river. How much the geological composition and geological structure of the hill affects its human-related history, and why this par-ticular hill has been – and for some, still is – considered sacred, might be a matter of intense debate. So first let us briefly address that glimpse of time. After all, a rock is only a rock, at least for us geologists. The famous Acropolis is an ancient temple site located high up on a rocky cliff in the middle of Athens. The hill is formed of a lowermost Upper Cretaceous (100 My) lime-stone resting on younger rocks of the Athens Schist Formation (72 My). Overthrusting, marked by the brecciated character of the lower part of the limestone, must have occurred during continental collision in the Upper Eocene orogenic phase; erosion and faulting produced the klippe that we can observe today. The contact between the lower Athens schist and the upper limestone has traditionally been a place of numerous springs and karstic caves.

History

The Acropolis was home to one of the earliest known settlements in Greece, as early as 5000 BC. In Mycenaean times – around 1500 BC – it was fortified with Cyclopean (one eyed giants) walls (parts of which can still be seen), enclosing a royal palace and temples to the cult of Athena. By the ninth century BC, the Acropolis had become the heart of Athens, sheltering its principal public buildings, which remained there until in 510 BC the Oracle at Delphi ordered that the Acropolis should remain the province of the gods, unoccupied by humans.

Following the Persian sacking of Athens in 480 BC, a grand rebuilding project under the direction of the architect and sculptor Fidias created almost everything you see today in an incredibly short time: the Parthenon itself took only ten years to finish. The monuments survived unaltered for close to a thousand years, until in the reign of Emperor Justinian the temples were converted to Christian worship. Over the following centuries the uses became secular as well as religious, and embellishments increased, gradually obscuring the Classical designs. Fifteenth-century Italian princes held court in the Propylaia, and the same quarters were later used by the Turks as their commander’s headquarters and as a powder magazine.

The Parthenon underwent similar changes from Greek to Roman temple, from Byzantine church to Frankish cathedral, before several centuries of use as a Turkish mosque. The Erechtheion, with its graceful female figures, saw service as a harem. A Venetian diplomat described the Acropolis in 1563 as “looming beneath a swarm of glittering golden crescents”, with a minaret rising from the Parthenon. For all their changes in use, however, the buildings would still have resembled – very much more than today’s bare ruins – the bustling and ornate ancient Acropolis, covered in sculpture and painted in bright colours.

Continuation of the Atlantic Theory of Homer's Ilias and Odyssey (part 1: Atlantic Troy; part 2:  Atlantic Ismaros-Kikones; part 3: Atlantic Kuthera-Lotophages). Odysseus' wanderings after his departure from Troy: Route Senegal-Madeira, Fogo or Cameroon. Study of Atlantic authors De Grave, Cailleux, Gideon, Wilkens, Vinci. Various identifications of the Land of the Cyclopes.

“…the I is invisible, as when H. Masud Taj reflects on insight, blindness and the chance symmetries between nature and architecture, in ‘The Clock Tower, the Skyscraper and the Moon’:

The clock tower is a cyclops
The skyscraper is blind,
The moon is a wandering hole in the sky
Searching for skyscrapers.

The spare lines compress entire mythologies”

- Ranjit Hoskote, Editor
Reasons for Belonging: Fourteen contemporary Indian poets  (p.xxii)

The Cyclops Polyphemus as a Metaphor for Western Civilization and its Linear Way of Reasoning

"The Greeks only understand theories, but the Chinese are the people who own the technologies." -- Josafa Barbaro, 1474

"Only the Chinese have two eyes, all other mortals are blind." -- Christian Wolff, 1721

Staging Euripides' Cyclops during the Interwar period in Greece: The article examines the presence of the folk element in three different and significant stage productions of Cyclops. The three directors (Vasilis Rotas 1930, Karolos Koun 1932, Fotos Politis 1934) used the adaption of Alexandros Pallis. As Pallis' work was closer to a new version than to a simple translation of the play, the way the three directors used it indicates a procedure of fermentation that was taking place in Greece during the Interwar period, involving the formation of national identity in the Greek theater.

Etude de la réécriture virgilienne de la cyclopie homérique en fonction des commentaires à tendance ethnographique, évhémériste ou allégorique de l’Odyssée. Virgile a exploité de façon très précise ces différentes tendances, utilisant les récits adoxographiques relatifs aux cyclopes que l’on trouve chez les commentateurs pour proposer plusieurs cyclopies dans l’Enéide; l’une dont le protagoniste est un Polyphème plus primitif et monstrueux que chez Homère, met l’accent sur l’horrible et le merveilleux : ce dernier registre étant chez les Anciens le vêtement de l’allégorie, la confrontation avec Polyphème a trait au thème moral de la colère. Une cyclopie secondaire met en scène le tyran Mézence, à partir de certaines interprétations alternatives de la cyclopie dont les traces persistent dans les scolies et en contexte byzantin.

The aim of my essay is to summarize the lectures on Surprising Subalternity. To do so, I will discuss a selection of episodes from James Joyce’s Ulysses – Cyclops, Oxen of the Sun and Circe, along with concepts of love/hatred, kairoi, and the historical context of Ireland at the time when Ulysses was written.