Being a Woman-荷马诗歌中的女神形象-关于古希腊神话的文学论文(3)

Introduction
Homer is a famous and mysterious figure in the ancient literature who made a significant contribution in the development of literature of all times. His personality and existence is the subject for numerous discussions since some specialists consider that he did not live at all but despite these arguments the importance of works, which are known as works by Homer, is not less significant.
Homeric works are characterized by description of ancient Greek traditions, beliefs, stereotypes. At this respect the attitude to women and their role in the society seem to be very interesting to analyze in the context of his works, such as “The Hymn to Demeter” and “The Odyssey”. These two works represent a gradual evolution on the role of women in society that will be discussed in terms of this paper.
On comparing two works by Homer, “The Hymn to Demeter” and “The Odyssey”, it should be said that they represent the transition of views from initially matriarchal prevailing to the new patriarchic views where the role of women becomes more dependable on men. Nonetheless, there may be found a lot of common features that make both works similar.
In fact “The Hymn to Demeter” depicts women to a certain extent dominating and controlling people. obviously in this work the traces of the matriarchal epoch are very strong because the Goddesses, namely Demeter, are so influential that even Zeus, the head of the Greek pantheon feels a kind of apprehension from her part. She is so influential that “she would have destroyed whole race of men and would have deprived Olympians of splendid honor of gifts and sacrifices” (The Hymn to Demeter). The reason is that at that epoch women Goddesses as well as women at large were traditionally associated with fertility consequently in such a context Demeter’s threats seemed to be more than real for ancient Greeks.
At this respect “The Hymn to Demeter” is quite different from “The Odyssey”. The reason is that in “The Hymn to Demeter” people are very weak creatures fully depending on Gods and Goddesses will while “The Odyssey” symbolizes the increasing role of men and their power along with the decreasing role of Gods and Goddesses that is one of the symbols of the transformations that took place in the ancient Greek society. For instance, Odyssey remarks: “Verily Calypso, the fair Goddess, would fain have kept me with her in hallow caves, longing to have me for her lord; and likewise too, guileful Circe of Aia, would have stayed me in her halls longing to have me for her lord. But never did they prevail upon my heart within my breast” (“The Odyssey”). Obviously it directly opposes to “feeble tribes of men and Gods” (“The Hymn to Demeter”).
At the same time such transformation concerned not only divine sphere but everyday life as well. In “The Odyssey” the role of women is more limited as compared to “The Hymn to Demeter”, where women played a very important social role and occupied significant social position while in “The Odyssey” the role of women is narrowed and now women are basically occupied with the family. A symbol of such loyalty to a man and keeping faithfulness to the husband is Penelope, the wife of Odyssey. She remains loyal to him and brings up their son.