tailieunhanh - Animals, Gods and Humans - Chapter 4

Metamorphoses I In this chapter, we will discuss two types of animal–human transformation that were especially pondered upon by the Graeco-Roman imagination. These were imagined relationships – expressions of myth and fantasy – in which animals were drawn into the human sphere. | 4 IMAGINATION AND TRANSFORMATIONS Metamorphoses I In this chapter we will discuss two types of animal-human transformation that were especially pondered upon by the Graeco-Roman imagination. These were imagined relationships expressions of myth and fantasy in which animals were drawn into the human sphere. Here they were internalized and recreated as aspects of human nature and sometimes mixed with human qualities in other ways. The first of these relationships is a human-animal transformation during a single life metamorphosis while the second is a human animal transformation during several lives metenso-matosis . Fantasies about animals and humans had their outlet in art as well as in narratives and literature. One prominent theme is transformation between animals and humans. A transformation could be a metamorphosis a change of bodily form or species taking place within one life-time. Alternatively the change takes place in a progression from one life to another in the form of a metensomatosis a change of body. Such tales of transformation do not describe animals as external antagonists as was the case with the animals that were confronted by Hercules and Orpheus but they are more directly a reflection of the inherent bestial aspects of the human situation. The theme of transformation between humans and animals is often an elaboration of how the bestial aspect of humans represents a degradation of human qualities. Ovid s tales of transformation focus in singular ways on similarities and differences between animals and humans on essences and changes on permanence and flux. Gods changing into animal shapes had been a popular theme in Greek mythology especially with regard to Zeus. Disguised as an animal the father of the gods visited girls on earth Leda as a swan and Europa as a bull. In Latin also the topic of metamorphosis was popular. In these metamorphoses the boundaries between mortals and immortals as well as those between humans and animals were crossed and