Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, 75th Anniversary Illustrated Edition

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The same reviewer also credited the book with noting that modern concepts of play and sport were actually common activities to the Greeks, who engaged in exercise and athletic events, including games, races, and music, dancing, and wrestling competitions, among others. The second is that Hamilton shows an absolute lack of respect for the Norse Myths, offering up a paltry 20 pages that were carelessly tacked onto the rear end of this work as though she’d squeezed out all of her best Greek Myths and the Norse tales were just the left-over dregs, like the dags on an oxes ass! After retiring as an educator in 1922 and moving to New York City in 1924, Hamilton began a second career as an author of essays and best-selling books on ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. In 1930, when she was sixty-three years old, she published The Greek Way, in which she presented parallels between life in ancient Greece and in modern times. Fry’s collection is the equivalent of a book advertising itself as retelling “the stories from Shakespeare” that leaves out Hamlet, Othello, Lear, Julius Caesar, Romeo, Juliet and Henry V.

Hector’s young Son, Astyanax and Hecuba’s daughter, Polyxena are murdered after the defeat of Troy, Tantalus kills his own son and feeds him to the Gods, Atreus feeds his brother his own children… you get the point! Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes is a book written by Edith Hamilton, published in 1942 by Little, Brown and Company. Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, disrespected the Goddess Leto by exclaiming to the people that they should worship and burn incense to her and not to the Goddess. Yet each new telling represents a new interpretation that shifts emphases and draws connections not previously made. Rhea is able to save one, Zeus, who forces Cronus to vomit up his siblings, with whom he defeats the Titans for control of the universe.The Greek Way showed that the Greeks recognized and appreciated such things as love, athletic games, love of knowledge, fine arts, and intelligent conversation. Drawing from Greek, Roman, Hebrew, and early Christian writings, Hamilton put into words what ancient people were like by concentrating on what they wrote about their own lives. Francisco de Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son, in which the titan Saturn eats all his children so that they won't be the death of him.

More often than not she shares with us the particular poet’s version she has taken inspiration from in her retelling and any others she has borrowed from as supplementation. According to reviewers, Hamilton's The Prophets of Israel (1936) had similarities to her earlier books about Greeks and Romans by making the prophets' messages relevant to contemporary readers. They were informed that women could attend lectures, but they were expected to remain "invisible" and would not be allowed to participate in discussions. One reviewer in Australia explained Hamilton's view "that the spirit of our age is a Greek discovery, and that the Greeks were really the first Westerners, and the first intellectualists. Ariadne falls in love with the hero Theseus and uses a golden thread to help him defeat the Labyrinth of the dreaded Minotaur.Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy gave him a copy of The Greek Way, which she felt was certain to help him. Hamilton also summarized the importance of that connection to people in modern times: "Love and grief and joy remain the same forever beautiful" and "poetic truth is always true" as are truths of the spirit.

Nevertheless, none of the Olympians could be considered Angels and they’ve all got blood on their hands by the closing of this book.

You end up second-guessing yourself - maybe the classic status is causing you to be unduly deferential.