http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/keyword/greek-literature Inquiries Journal provides undergraduate and graduate students around the world a platform for the wide dissemination of academic work over a range of core disciplines. en-us Tue, 07 Apr 2026 05:34:47 -0400 Tue, 07 Apr 2026 05:34:47 -0400 http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1892/the-eumenides-antigone-and-the-nature-of-objective-justice By Patrick F. Sheils - Justice in The Eumenides is established as an objective entity and it is in The Eumenides that it is solidified as a concept which has causal power over the material world. This metaphysical abstraction seeks to gain purchase through interpersonal relationships and inner-psychological longings. In Antigone, this meta-concept is personified in the material existence of Antigone as a solitary individual. Justice exists as an underlying substructure in both the abstract and the material and can only be instinctually known through its manifestation in human action. This concept is best displayed using... Tue, 30 Mar 2021 09:46 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1892/the-eumenides-antigone-and-the-nature-of-objective-justice http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1882/penelope-helen-and-the-ancient-greek-spectrum-of-femininity-observations-of-womanhood-in-the-homeric-epics By Jenn Beardsley - Although most Ancient Greek literature focused on male characters, a literary analysis of Homeric poetry reveals an inquisition of femininity, motherhood, and what it meant to be a woman in Ancient Greece. Throughout the epic The Iliad and its sequel The Odyssey, the Homeric poets created a spectrum of ideal versus unideal femininity, with notorious Helen on one end and faithful Penelope on the other. Dissection of each epic unveils an exploration into this spectrum of femininity through the use of motifs, or the repetition of a theme throughout a narrative. Specifically, the poets utilized the... Fri, 26 Feb 2021 02:40 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1882/penelope-helen-and-the-ancient-greek-spectrum-of-femininity-observations-of-womanhood-in-the-homeric-epics http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1866/material-nostalgia-in-classical-and-early-modern-drama By Marnie J. Monogue - The inescapability and influence of the past becomes most discernable with homecoming. A particularly powerful sense of nostalgia concentrates in textiles, especially when these objects purposefully invoke the past. More often than not, theatre uses textile props and clothing as the primary representative medium, enhancing storytelling capacity. These symbolic fabrics and costumes can best be characterized as Shakespeare’s “trappings and suits of woe,” as they function as both physical and psychological traps, but also allow for outward expression of “that within which... Thu, 21 Jan 2021 11:38 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1866/material-nostalgia-in-classical-and-early-modern-drama http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1206/the-dichotomy-of-gender-in-euripides-bacchae By Hayley E. Tartell - In Euripides’ Bacchae, careful examination of the character Dionysus illuminates discrepancies in action based on gender. Ultimately, Dionysus’ effeminate nature compounded with his subversive measures toward women and male proclivities suggest an inherent duality. Dionysus’ vacillation between masculine and feminine tendencies characterizes him as a heteronormative embodiment of both males and females, in essence, a community or civilized society. However, since his duality also represents a loss of identity, one can deduce that the play advocates a pre-communal state of existence... Mon, 12 Oct 2015 09:44 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1206/the-dichotomy-of-gender-in-euripides-bacchae http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/392/the-effect-of-troys-rebirth-on-aeneass-transformation-in-the-aeneid By Sujay Kulshrestha - In the Aeneid, Virgil depicts the struggle of the newly displaced Trojans to find a new home, under the leadership of Aeneas. The Trojans, having only recently lost the Trojan War to the Greeks, travel in search of a new home, eventually settling in Italy−to the dismay of some of the Italians. The motif of Troy’s rebirth plays a major role in the Aeneid in that it is intertwined with Aeneas’s personal destiny; the two domains are so intertwined that Aeneas both prevents his own happiness and alters his own personality to successfully create a new Troy. Over the course of the... Fri, 18 Feb 2011 09:34 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/392/the-effect-of-troys-rebirth-on-aeneass-transformation-in-the-aeneid http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/384/the-relationship-between-gods-and-humans-in-aias-and-the-poetry-of-sapphos By Sujay Kulshrestha - Reading Greek plays provides valuable insight into the relationships between gods and humans. While both gods and humans have fairly similar personalities Greek gods have a certain amount of power that, given motivation from an arrogant mortal, they are all too willing to manipulate for their own entertainment without regard to the consequences for others. In Aias, Sophocles begins by telling the story of Ajax some time after the events in Homer’s Iliad. Over the course of the play, Sophocles relates that Ajax feels slighted, because he was not awarded the now-deceased Achilles’s armor... Wed, 09 Feb 2011 09:14 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/384/the-relationship-between-gods-and-humans-in-aias-and-the-poetry-of-sapphos http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/71/confrontation-with-death-illuminates-deaths-mystery-in-the-odyssey By Lindsay D. Clark - Even in fairy tales and fantastical legends, the trespassing of the breathing upon the domain of the spirits is rare. It is a disturbing idea; when the dead visit our world, we can at least find comfort in numbers. Yet the hero Odysseus braves the unknown and looks into the eyes of death. And as ghostly whispers blow across the hair on his arms we expect him to return traumatized, changed, darkly enlightened—but no. He emerges a little puffy-eyed, but very much himself. Several times Odysseus seems close to discovering some deathly mystery, brushing the stardust off some universally kept... Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:49 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/71/confrontation-with-death-illuminates-deaths-mystery-in-the-odyssey http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/62/the-emobidment-of-human-tragedy-in-the-illiad By Lindsay D. Clark - Why raise the curtain on this 45 day by 45 night saga? In a story whose ending everybody knows already, why choose these actions of these characters to expound upon? The Iliad is not a war tale one might tell in which friends love friends, who in conjunction hate enemies, and all fight quite openly for comrades, for righteousness, and for glory—for here wherein lies a single truth? Or a story worth telling? The Iliad instead is a story of confusion, of vagueness, of mixed messages and muddled motivations. And it achieves its primary meaning not through fearless Achilles or great Hector... Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:41 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/62/the-emobidment-of-human-tragedy-in-the-illiad http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/48/child-murders-in-medea-parallel-past-and-present-use-of-child-soldiers By Lindsay D. Clark - That wars are fought by the young for the old is a universally known truth. It is an ancient argument, a tired anti-war theme. Tired not in that it is hackneyed or obsolete, but in that its hollering admonitions have for all of time fallen on ears consistently deafened by bugles. The god of war does not discriminate among whose children his brutality destroys, though we ourselves usually tend to think of a “child soldier” as a twelve-year-old African boy hopped up on meth and indoctrinated in violence, or a teenaged Muslim boy strapping on a bomb and muttering prayers. After all, we... Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:14 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/48/child-murders-in-medea-parallel-past-and-present-use-of-child-soldiers