The Practical Significance of Ancient Greek Stories

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Ancient Greek culture, especially its splendid myth, has been attracting the attention of countless lovers all over the world for thousands of years, and there are countless studies on it. With today's vision, this group of people want to return to the feast of the Muse, smell the breath of Zeus, make a superficial exploration of the practical significance of ancient Greek mythology, and talk about our gains here.

In the history of western civilization, ancient Greek culture and Hebrew culture are called the two breasts that feed western civilization. Therefore, these two Greek cultures are a key to understand and study western civilization. For the ancient Greek civilization, its epics and myths recorded rich information of this civilization, so it is the most basic and main inquiry to study this civilization from epics and myths. Here, we will discuss the rich connotation of ancient Greek mythology and the god of Olympus in human culturology, and correct people's superficial understanding of mythology for a long time, so as to get a glimpse of the original character and identity of Greek mythology.

At first, I worshipped the Muse and looked at the sea. At first, my love for this originated from the simple pursuit of the beautiful artistic conception of its myth itself. For a long time, most people have accepted Marx's view of myth, believing that myth developed in the childhood of human beings with low productivity, and its magnificent story and imaginative thinking bias come from the desire of primitive human beings to transform and conquer nature. Gorky said: "Generally speaking, myth is a natural phenomenon, a struggle against nature, and a reflection of social life in broad artistic generalization."

In my opinion, Marx and Gorky's exposition is very incisive. They revealed the essential characteristics of myth, but their views seem to need further elaboration and supplement. Their views pay more attention to the relationship between man and nature and society in mythology, but ignore the relationship between man and his own spiritual culture in mythology. As Marx himself said, "Man is a social animal." People and society are inherently integrated, so it is inevitable that the study of favoritism will be biased. This is also the focus of our research. Since myth is the creation of human beings, it naturally reflects people's own cultural character and mental outlook. As an extremely complex and colorful system, Greek mythology has unparalleled practical significance.

If you are satisfied with my answer, please adopt it in time.

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First, the realistic foundation.

Ancient Greece is one of the ancient civilizations in the world. The activities of the ancient Greeks mainly included the southern Balkans, the western coastal areas of Asia Minor and the islands in the eastern Mediterranean. In addition, they have been in contact with the residents along the Black Sea for a long time, and emigrated to the southern coast of the Italian Peninsula and Sicily, with footprints as far away as the western Mediterranean and North Africa. The ancient Greeks created splendid and colorful cultures, and left a rich legacy in the process of their survival and development, among which myths and legends are one.

Ancient myths have a long history, which is the product of ancient humans conquering natural forces with the help of imagination during the period of low productivity development. Thus, the ancient myth must include the story of God and the story of the relationship and conflict between man and God, that is, the legend of heroes. The story of God more clearly reflects the rich imagination of ancient human beings in visualizing powerful natural phenomena, while the legend of heroes mainly worships and idealizes legendary figures and related events that may have some historical significance, reflecting the survival activities of ancient human beings and their tenacious struggle with nature. Ancient Greek mythology also includes these two aspects.

Ancient Greek myths and stories were formed very early. They are the crystallization of collective creation from ancient generations. Myth was first passed down by word of mouth, and then by words. Its earliest written document handed down from generation to generation is Homer's epic. In addition to the main story, the epic also mentioned many other fairy tales, which were obviously widely circulated and known at that time. Shortly after Homer, there was the ancient Greek poet hesiod's long poem "Divine Spectrum", which briefly described many fairy tales and immediately tried to pedigree those stories. The theme of ancient Greek tragedy is basically based on myth, which is a dramatic embodiment of the writer's realistic understanding of those fairy tales. In the Hellenistic period after the 3rd century BC, Alexander scholars made great contributions to the collection and preservation of ancient Greek myths in the collection and annotation of classic works, while some poets excavated many little-known mythological allusions under the guidance of the principle of knowledge.

Compared with all known national myths, ancient Greek myths are the most colorful. Moreover, ancient Greek mythology has unparalleled humanistic content and systematic structure, which constitutes its unique world landscape. This unique scene of the mythical world now seems to be a great creation of the ancient Greeks, but it is undeniable that it is also related to the pre-Greek civilization, that is, the Aegean civilization, and the civilizations around the Mediterranean with Crete-Mycenae as the core.

From four to three thousand BC, the civilizations in the two river basins, the Nile basin and the Mediterranean region unveiled the history of human beings in the non-border areas of Europe and Asia, which made the Mediterranean region and the Greek region in a superior position where several major civilizations met. Therefore, the diversity of folk culture first makes the residents and their migrants in this area more tolerant and tolerant than those in India or the Central Plains. Although the ethnic and tribal conflicts here are one after another, they are all carried out in the exchange of different cultures. The heterogeneous and diverse cultures have made people in this area have an open mind. As a result, after all the pre-Greek civilizations were destroyed, diverse and heterogeneous civilization memories still existed in the hearts of the new Greek nation, and they were also created with the new history. Ancient Greek mythology has long been regarded as the manifestation of animism, or as a symbol of dreams, or as a distorted imitation of nature, or as a rumor of gods.

In a word, mysticism of animism and narrow materialism of nature worship have prevailed for a long time. However, in the former Soviet era, the ancient Greeks never doubted the connection between myth and real history. /kloc-In the late 9th century, with the excavation and archaeological work of Sheriman, Doerrfeld and others, the discovery of linear characters A and B, and the interpretation and interpretation of linear characters B, the splendid culture of pre-Aegean civilization broke through the historical darkness, and its outline appeared clearly in front of people. As a result, the content of ancient Greek myths and epics has become a heavy historical culture rooted in the national soil, rather than an illusory ancient dream, which has been re-recognized by people. Zlatkov Skaya's small and interesting book "The Origin of European Culture" introduces the history and culture before Dorian invaded Greece in the12nd century. However, the 400-year history from Dorian's invasion of Greece to Homer's era is abrupt and slim. However, judging from the development of the whole history and culture in Europe, the 400 years of this dark age, like a pregnant woman, gave birth to a freak that human civilization has never seen before-Greek civilization-gradually formed a unique social democratic political form-and opened up a new era in human history. If we say when human history began to be modern, then we can say that it started in Greece from the sixth century BC to the fifth century BC. Because all the history of civilization in the past is the history of absolute monarchy, the so-called modernity is also the era of social democracy. Although after Greece and Rome, human history entered the era of 1000 years of absolute monarchy, today, Greece seems to be very close to our time. The rich humanistic contents in Greek myths and epics are still the logical starting point for us to "know ourselves" today.

Second, is it God or man?

Greek gods are not as tall as China's, but highly personified and realistic, with emotions and selfish desires. Later generations were surprised to see the bud of primitive humanism. Greek mythology shows people and gods truly, without whitewashing the light or covering up the darkness. It treats people and God equally. Don't cover up his meanness just because he is a hero, and don't cover up his hypocrisy just because he is a god. If you want to talk about the difference with the myth of China, it can be roughly summarized as three points:

1, ancient immortals in China are all, cutting off secular desires, out of touch, full of mystery. Greek gods are like human beings. Some people have distinct body and spirit, no asceticism, and little mysticism. Beauty, the secular desire of some people, knows the joys and sorrows and participates in people's activities.

2. The criteria for judging God are different. Suntech in China and Greece pays more attention to wisdom.

3. Ancestor worship and religious worship exist in China, but not in Greece.

The nation facing the ocean is open and free, full of adventure and exploration spirit, while the nation living in the depths of the inland is cautious and conservative, with a confident mentality; This is also obvious in myth. This is not only determined by the social reality at that time and the ideological and cultural differences between people's reality, but also has a far-reaching impact on the ruling forces of these two worlds and people's values.

The following is a brief introduction to the Greek gods, so as to get a glimpse:

In the Olympus system, there are countless gods of all kinds. It is generally believed that there are twelve gods, but there are different versions, one of which is:

1) Zeus: the father of the gods, the god of thunder and lightning, the supreme ruler of the universe, just, willful and lustful.

2) Hera: the wife of Zeus. Is the representative of women, in charge of marriage and childbirth. Personality traits, jealousy.

3) Athena: Originally regarded as Sivir, she gradually became the goddess of wisdom and the guardian goddess of Athens.

4) Apollo, the sun god, is the god of light, youth and music in poetry and art.

5) Artemis: the moon god, the god of hunting and virgins, is the embodiment of female purity.

6) Dionysus (also known as Bagus): the god of drinking.

7) Aphrodite (also known as Venus): Beauty and Freya. Her loyal follower eros (also known as Cupid) holds a bow and arrow, and the shot person falls in love.

8) Poseidon: Poseidon.

9) Hades: Hades.

10) hephaestus: Vulcan and craftsman.

1 1) ares: ares.

12) Hester: Kitchen God.

All the twelve gods have distinct personalities and secular desires. They have human character and emotion and superhuman special skills. In ancient Greece, in addition to the stories of gods, there were many demigod "heroes" born from the copulation between gods and people. Legends about heroes, the most famous are Achilles' story, Odysseus' story, Hercules' story of twelve meritorious deeds, and Jason's story of leading heroes to capture golden fleece. This unified genealogy has ended the struggle and mutual vendetta between gods, and each god has its own unique authority and jurisdiction. This organized new world order has become a universe in which gods and people move and enjoy. Although there were still evil spirits such as Tifeng who tried to disturb this order, they failed after all. In this myth pedigree, we can see that even the twelve gods have gods in charge of the underworld of heaven, sea and earth, kitchen gods in charge of the main fields of human activities, Vulcan craftsmen who can make human beings stand on their own feet, virgins and goddesses of love, and ares and goddesses who fight for wisdom. It can be seen that in every possible field, there are its owners, and they have not died of old age, but have frequent contact with each other. Olympus is a sacred place for them, and they can have fun every day.

This myth can be said to be rooted in the democratic political system and people's democratic thoughts prevailing in ancient Greece, especially Athens, and instilled the consciousness of slavery, democracy and freedom into the Greeks. Personifying God is not only the need of culture itself; Because it makes people feel that God-or the authority it symbolizes-is not untouchable. In the present words: "God became God only because he did what others could not." In other words, there is a tendency to deny all authority ideologically. Even heroes have appeared among people, which shows that even hero worship has a "democratic" color; It is under the guidance of this concept that westerners have a particularly strong desire to realize their self-worth, which also provides spiritual soil for the subsequent development of science and technology and the prosperity of market economy. It is not difficult to understand Napoleon's famous saying: "A soldier who does not want to be a general is not a good soldier." It can be said that, as a slave civilization that has just moved from a coastal cave to the mainland, it is also a miracle in human history to produce such amazing flowers under the conditions of backward productivity and basic self-sufficient living materials such as food and oilcloth. This reminds us of a slave society with a similar age during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. It was also during the period of great turmoil and great change that a hundred schools of thought contended. The ideas and cultures produced have also become the ideological and cultural sources of the Chinese nation and even many countries in the East, but we can always find expressions such as "monarch, minister and son", which can not help but make people lament the similarities and differences in history. Only in this period, the eastern and western cultures are doomed to go their separate ways completely. Myth is a leaf of Sanqiu, which can be called "quite critical".

Third, the far-reaching impact and enlightenment

The strong humanism in ancient Greek mythology not only provided the ideological source and theoretical basis for the prosperous democratic politics at that time, but also became a powerful weapon for the bourgeois revolution and democratic movement in the modern western world. Since all gods have secular desires, as a monarch, even if he preaches the theory that "I am the country" like Louis XIV, it seems so pale and powerless. Then, as a church, even if it preaches abstinence and afterlife, how much challenge can it bear? Therefore, when people play the banner of reviving ancient Greek and Roman civilization after a thousand years, feudal lords and churches will feel great fear; Facts have proved that their fears are justified. Since people should have their own status and dignity, scientists, writers, artists, thinkers and reformers inspired by this spirit can compete to write their own colorful strokes in the corner of history without being afraid of their predecessors. Even in terms of its influence on culture itself, its role is extraordinary. Many literary and artistic works take it as their theme and inherit its heritage. There is a saying in the ancient west that "glory belongs to Greece and greatness belongs to Rome". Greek culture can be said to be the source of dazzling romantic art, however, cultural characteristics and practical significance meet and merge, forming a complete unity, embedded in these myths, and becoming the treasure of human spiritual world, which makes future generations can't help gazing at it carefully and deeply intoxicated. Its cultural core is obviously opposed to strong hierarchical concepts such as Brahmanism, and it is also different from the dry preaching and feeble arguments of many religions that "all men are created equal". It advocates justice and speaks slowly in plain language, and its cultural charm and realistic color are intoxicating. This also caused people to think naturally: Can we get anything from it?

The answer is yes, not as simple as dogmatic "culture reacts on politics and economy". As a civilization itself, it is eclectic, not only inheriting the primitive cave culture, but also widely absorbing the cultural essence of Asia, Europe and Africa with its unique geographical location. A hundred rivers are full of tolerance. If we can treat all cultures with an open mind, our own national culture will certainly grow and develop. As far as thinking is concerned, carrying forward the people-oriented spirit and respecting individual rights and freedom of thought is not only the inevitable trend of the times, but also the consistent pursuit of mankind's long history.

Therefore, ancient Greek mythology has extraordinary practical significance, and its root lies in that it is not only the essence of the times, but also the immortal precious wealth of mankind. It conveys the ancient people's views on the world and life, and also inspires us to think about what attitude we should have towards today's world and life. This is its real charm, and it is its eternal shining light.

Main reference materials: Greek and Roman history, Greek myths and legends.