What Are Epic Heroes Today
Epic Heroes: From the Past and Today
In the world today there are many people we view as heroes. Ordinary people, who stand out in the middle of a crowd, the kind of people we set out a day of the year as a national holiday in honor of them. Our heroes today are very similar to epic heroes in ancient epic poetry, they also are very different.
In today's society, Heroes have qualities that resemble epic heroes in Greek culture. Epic heroes have very lucid qualities that make them an epic hero. Epic heroes are significant and glorified, are on a quest, and are of superior or superhuman strength, intelligence, and/or courage. One of society’s heroes that fit one, if not all, of these traits is Martin Luther King Jr.; He as a man was significant …show more content…
Here are the means I thought would serve my term: a club, or staff, lay there along the fold- an olive tree, felled green and left to season for Cyclops’ hand. And it was like a mast a lugger of twenty oars, broad in the beam— a deep-seagoing craft—might carry: so long, so big around it seemed. Now I chopped out a six-foot section of this pole and set it down before my own men, who scraped it; and when they had it smooth, I hewed again to make a stake with a pointed end. I held this in the fires heart and turned it, toughening it then hid it, well back in the cavern, under one of the dung piles in profusion there. Now came the time to toss for it: who ventured along with me? Whose hand could bear to thrust and grind that spike in Cyclops’ eye, when mild sleep had mastered him? As luck would have it, the men I would have chosen won the toss— four strong men, and I made five as captain” (Homer 764). The epic hero of the Odyssey, Odysseus, showed his mental dexterity when he thought of the way to hurt the Cyclops and begin his escape from the Cyclops’ …show more content…
But presently I gave command to my officers to flay those sheep the bronze cut down, and make burnt offerings of flesh to the gods below — to sovereign Death, to pale Persephone. Meanwhile I crouched with my drawn sword to keep the surging phantoms from the bloody pit till I should know the presence of Tiresias” (Homer 776). A common characteristic of heroes in epic poems is that they often experience a symbolic death or has to travel to the underworld. In the Odyssey, Odysseus travels to the underworld and make an offering to Persephone, wife of Hades, and Tiresias, the dead, blind prophet. Modern paladins do not travel to the underworld. Demigods of epics tend to have mythological qualities that are not related to avant-garde
In the world today there are many people we view as heroes. Ordinary people, who stand out in the middle of a crowd, the kind of people we set out a day of the year as a national holiday in honor of them. Our heroes today are very similar to epic heroes in ancient epic poetry, they also are very different.
In today's society, Heroes have qualities that resemble epic heroes in Greek culture. Epic heroes have very lucid qualities that make them an epic hero. Epic heroes are significant and glorified, are on a quest, and are of superior or superhuman strength, intelligence, and/or courage. One of society’s heroes that fit one, if not all, of these traits is Martin Luther King Jr.; He as a man was significant …show more content…
Here are the means I thought would serve my term: a club, or staff, lay there along the fold- an olive tree, felled green and left to season for Cyclops’ hand. And it was like a mast a lugger of twenty oars, broad in the beam— a deep-seagoing craft—might carry: so long, so big around it seemed. Now I chopped out a six-foot section of this pole and set it down before my own men, who scraped it; and when they had it smooth, I hewed again to make a stake with a pointed end. I held this in the fires heart and turned it, toughening it then hid it, well back in the cavern, under one of the dung piles in profusion there. Now came the time to toss for it: who ventured along with me? Whose hand could bear to thrust and grind that spike in Cyclops’ eye, when mild sleep had mastered him? As luck would have it, the men I would have chosen won the toss— four strong men, and I made five as captain” (Homer 764). The epic hero of the Odyssey, Odysseus, showed his mental dexterity when he thought of the way to hurt the Cyclops and begin his escape from the Cyclops’ …show more content…
But presently I gave command to my officers to flay those sheep the bronze cut down, and make burnt offerings of flesh to the gods below — to sovereign Death, to pale Persephone. Meanwhile I crouched with my drawn sword to keep the surging phantoms from the bloody pit till I should know the presence of Tiresias” (Homer 776). A common characteristic of heroes in epic poems is that they often experience a symbolic death or has to travel to the underworld. In the Odyssey, Odysseus travels to the underworld and make an offering to Persephone, wife of Hades, and Tiresias, the dead, blind prophet. Modern paladins do not travel to the underworld. Demigods of epics tend to have mythological qualities that are not related to avant-garde