NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
Connections through the Ages The selected works by the varied authors held many different ideas. These ideas were remarkable for the time they were written and even more incredible is the prominence in which they affect today s history and literature. The works are linked together through four common themes; religion, the afterlife, laws of life and the character of man. Religious questions and uncertainties in culture were brought out in the stories. In The Wife of Bath prologue and tale by Geoffrey Chaucer were the question of whether or not it s a sin to marry again after a husband dies. The sin itself being the perception of others.
The argument Chaucerposes by using the wife s story is believable and connecting. The bible tells what a sin is but people sometimes chose to expand on the meaning in their fanatical search to be right in God s eyes. The wife tells a story with many reflections into the bible and the past history of the world. She defends herself most eloquently with these words: Lo, there s the wise old king Dan Solomon; I understand he had more wives than one; and now would God it were permitted to me to be refreshed on as oft as he!
Which gift of God he had for all his wives! page 1 No man has such that in this world now lives. God knows this noble king. Praise be to God that I have married five! (Chaucer 103 - 104). The wife says that she has loved all her husbands in a Christian manner and never cheated on them and gave herself fully to the institution of marriage. In the tale of Socrates, he is being taken to court because of what he believes is his purpose God gave him.
His goal was to expose the fraudulent wiseman of that time. Socrates questioned many ideas, he did this because he felt was his mission to get man to think. Religion during this time could based as a weapon because those who questioned the new religion were considered dealers in the black arts. In his own words he denied the blasphemy by saying: I am going to explain to you why I have such an evil name. When I heard the answer, I said to myself, what can God mean?
And what is the interpretation of this riddle? For I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What name can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men? page 2 And yet he is God, and cannot lie; that would be against his nature. After long consideration, I at last thought of a method of trying the question. (Plato 22) The evolution of religion can be seen in the many texts. The Epic of Gilgamesh and the tale of Priam and Achilles were written during a time when the belief of many gods were prevalent.
The gods seemed to be active the affairs of mortal men during these times. The gods were even known tomato with mortals in their desire to change and mold the world as they safi. The movement to the single God and free choice is found in the Holy Bible and many of the other texts. Some differences about the one God theory do arise but all seem to match each other in some way. Some of the books appear to search for the meaning to the question of what is God. One such book is Saint Augustine s Confessions.
Saint Augustine also deals with whether or not he is worthy to be forgiven for his sins in the eyes of God. Health looks for what the Bible is trying to convey. The Bible tells of the creation of life and other stories that give a picture as to what type of entity God is, yet he still has questions that make him ponder about his soul. In his simple words he shows the uncertainty of a follower: page 3 So I thought of you too, O Life of my life, as a great being with dimensions extending everywhere, throughout infinite space, permeating the whole mass of the world and reaching in all directions beyond it without limits. This was the theory to which I held, because I could imagine you in no other way. (Augustine 134) Religion seemed to be a topic of much discussion and foundation for the stories throughout the readings. Some with a slight hint of the omnipotent and others with vast amounts of religion in wording and flow.
The second theme and perhaps the hardest to spot in some of the readings is the view or belief in the after life. In The Epic of Gilgamesh death and afterlife are not things to be looked forward too. Gilgamesh does not recognize his own immortality until his best friend Enkidu dies. This send shim on a quest to search for immortality. What he finds is a plant from the bottom of a pool. In his desire for immortality and home, he loses the plant toa serpent, then feels he has lost everything in his search for everlasting life.
In Gilgamesh s eyes when you die you become dust and are buried within the earth but the gods who are immortal get to sit in the sunlight and enjoy the life a hero forever. He may have not been able to become a god but he would remembered: In nether-earth the darkness will show him a light: of mankind, all that are known, none will leave a monument for generations to come to compare with his. page 4 The heroes, the wise men, like the new moon have their waxing and waning. Men will say, Who has ever ruled with and with power like him?
As in a dark month, the month of shadows, so without him there is no light. O Gilgamesh this was the meaning of your dream. You were given the kingship, such was your destiny, everlasting life was not your destiny. (Sanders 118) Gilgamesh was searching for immortality because the afterlife was too uncertain. The fear of the unknown and the fear of no longer being of worth the people frightened him. The Bible promotes a good feeling towards death as being the ultimate reward for a properly led life. The bible leads threaded to believe that when they chose to be good it was freedom of choice that they exercised.
The Qu ran touches on the afterlife very seldom but lithe Bible, the followers are rewarded when their time comes. The Qu ronaldo has the uncertainty of death like Gilgamesh. If a follower in Allah falls battle his peers may say he died because he was not a true believer. So followers of Allah may be rewarded, or not, depending on how they die. Dante s idea of afterlife for those who had certain vices involved hell having levels. Each level was for a specific sin.
In Dante s realm of hell each level was a perversion of love. He chose to capitalize on the negative aspect of hell. page 5 Chaucer on the other hand used the wife s tale about the knight to hide a message that if we let God guide us and do as he wills us, we will be rewarded in the after life. Even the wife mentioned that all her husbands were certainly in heaven for each was a good man in his own way. In the Confessions, Saint Augustine told his story of sin. Later deliverance from this sin through God and how he experienced such joy at knowing that he would one day be in the Lords halls made his aspect of the after life one of cheer and glorious faith in the unseen.
Socrates, right before his death conviction, told his friend Crito that he did not fear dying for he felt he had lived many years and lived the way God wished it. He knew God was going reward him for the life he had lead. God had already told those who followed his words that they would be rewarded. Socrates looked forward tothe afterlife as a rest from the physical world and a place to talk to the other great minds who had passed before him. He even wished to talk to God himself upon his entrance to heaven. Each author and each character in the stories had a certain view of after life.
Some sought it, others avoided it s approach. Whether it was nothingness, a reward, or a hell, was what set the people and the tales apart. The third factor that connects all the stories is the idea of laws or rules onto to live life. The Bible sets forth the Commandments as the guidelines thread a morally and Godly way of life. Moses was given the ten Commandments by God himself.
God says that if any of these rules are broken that one will be sentenced to hell unless they repent the sin in Gods name. page 6 These rules were to guide one s soul. In The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelliwrites a step by step account on how to become a good ruler of the people and how to keep the power. This angle on the how to rule is along the sidelines as the Bible s Commandments. Both are guides to action that, if taken, will bring about a desired result. On the fanatic extreme is the work of Benedict of Nursia.
He wrote rules for how a monk should live in the services the Lord and within the monastery. Instead of rules, the Benedict of Nursia referred to them as degrees. The degrees of Humility and Obedience were at the root of his beliefs on the life in a monastery. Alucin s work is almost exactly like Nursia s except he covers the rules on how a bishop should carry himself and live in the eyes of the people. The Qu ran is an amendment to the Bible s rules which God made. God realized that men would war, so He made a new rule that involved when war would be sanctioned as not going against the Commandment thou shalt not kill.
Theory Utopia shadows the Qu ran almost perfectly. It gives the guide lines that Utopians follow when in a military situation. They both involve taking belongings from the enemy, the welfare of its people and winning, if a conflicts inevitable. They detest war as a very brutal thing; and which, to the roach of human nature, is more practiced by men than by sort of beast. They, in opposition to the sentiments of almost all other nations, think there is nothing more inglorious than the glory that is gained by war. (More 170) page 7 Thomas More s introduction to the laws of war were vastly dissimilar to that the Qu ran for there is some shred of civilization in its actions than the barbaric rules of the followers of Allah. Rules and guide lines of conduct have been a prominent subject of the history and literature of the different times.
They influence the people who read them to either follow it word forward or take from it knowledge to use as they see fit. Rules are made awesome are broken but people normally do not stray too far from the path set forth. The character of man has always affected the outcome of stories or politics. In the Bible, Jesus was a devout follower of the word of God, answer his disciples. Many men were jealous of Jesus because he seemed to be perfect and made them see their own flaws. Another character similar to Jesus would be Enkidu from the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Noble Enkidu was created. There was virtue in him of he god of war, of Ninurta himself. His body was rough, he had long hair like a woman s; it waved like the hair of Nisaba, the goddess of corn. His body was covered with matted hair Like Samuquan s, the god of cattle. He was innocent of mankind... (Sanders 63) He was a man of nature and blind to the world s corruption. His arrival into society and learning the ways of people; he slowly lost that which made him more human than the civilized man.
page 8 He was created by the gods and with their perfection yet the culture he moved erased the characteristics that made him innocent and noble. Marcus Aurelius and Marcus Cato were two different people but they wrote about these thing. One wrote about virtues through those that had raised him, theater had a story written about him and his great deeds. In the reading Meditations, Marcus Aurelius is searching for the greatness that people he knows possess. Plutarch writes about a person with high moral standards and ideals. Saint Augustine was a man of the people he set an example by showing people that an undesirable or unholy behavior could be over come.
He had flaws that people could recognize, but he also had the ability to change. His character was characterized by strong willpower and humility. Through out Greek tales the writers speak of the great character of the heroes and kings. The strong characteristics are seen in their actions. This does notify that they were not flawed, but rather that they held a high standard in a virtue the possessed. These writers capitalize on what the society considers god characteristics to have.
These have changed from time to time but all seemed rooted in the desire to be a good and lawful person. In the readings many different themes where seen. Some leapt fromthe pages and others where subtly hidden within the text. All could not be putin such a small work as this. Even one theme was enough to cover a wide range of ideas through the times and works presented. The themes of religion, the afterlife, the laws of life and the character of man are inherent italy the works and were paramount to the telling.
page 9 These themes combine to give us a look into the ideals and beliefs of the people and maybe a why to the questions we may have concerning their culture. page 10 Bibliography Augustine. Confessions. Book VII. Trans. R.
S Pine-Coffee. London. Penguin, 1961. Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. The Wife of Bath s Prologue.
Ed. Stanley Applebaum and Cadence Ward. Canada. Dover, 1994. More, Thomas.
Utopia. Their Military Discipline. pg 169 - 176 of selected works. Plato. The Trial and death of Socrates.
Apology. Ed Stanley Applebaum and Shane Weller. Canada. Dover, 1992.
The Epic of Gilgamesh. Trans. N. K. Sanders.
London, Penguin, 1972.
Free research essays on topics related to: marcus aurelius, epic of gilgamesh, saint augustine, wife of bath, bible tells
Research essay sample on Epic Of Gilgamesh Wife Of Bath
