JOHN THORBURN
eNotes Educator
Achievements
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615
Answers Posted
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About
I have a PhD in Classical Literature and Languages.
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in The Canterbury Tales
The Franklin of "The Canterbury Tales" is a bright and jovial man who appears to live a comfortable and rich lifestyle. In the general prologue, Chaucer provides a brief description of the... -
Answered a Question in The Decameron
True love has many meanings depending on each person and the values they hold for themselves. Loyalty between two lovers is necessary for any relationship to prosper. In the Decameron, especially... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
The task, quest, and journey that precedes the action of this epic poem is Odysseus's joining an expedition to recover Helen, the abducted queen of Sparta. After the task and quest of recovering... -
Answered a Question in Oedipus Rex
Sophocles' Oedipus Rex (Greek: Oedipus Tyrannos) first appeared on the stage in Athens during the early years of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and its allies and Sparta and its allies. Like... -
Answered a Question in Oedipus Rex
Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannos (or Oedipus Rex) first came to the stage in Athens around 429-425 BCE. Although the play takes Thebes as its setting, the play has several references to the town of... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
Odysseus makes both good and bad decisions along his journey from Troy to his native island of Ithaca. Book 9 of Homer's Odyssey provides examples of both Odysseus' good and bad decisions. One of... -
Answered a Question in Julius Caesar
The literary technique of personification treats an object or quality as if it were a human being. In Act II, Scene I of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, which was first produced around 1600,... -
Answered a Question in The Pot of Gold
Plautus' Pot of Gold (Latin: Aulularia) was first written around the 190s BCE. Plautus wrote his play in Latin for a Roman audience, but it was based on a Greek original. The names of the... -
Answered a Question in The Knight's Tale
In Chaucer's "Knight's Tale," two young noblemen, Arcite and Palamon, fall in love with an Athenian maiden named Emily. Initially, both Arcite and Palamon are in the same prison, but they both... -
Answered a Question in Doctor Faustus
The words consummatum est are also ironic because in the Vulgate Latin text of the Gospel of John (19:30), these are the last words that Jesus speaks before he dies on the cross: cum ergo... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus' first stop after leaving Troy is the land of the Cicones. After initially defeating the Cicones in battle, the Cicones regroup and attack Odysseus and his men, who had... -
Answered a Question in Othello
Another element in Shakespeare's Othello to which modern audiences can relate is the concept of jealousy. Indeed, the words jealous or jealousy occur 21 times in the play. Additionally, Othello... -
Answered a Question in The Pot of Gold
In Plautus' Pot of Gold (Latin: Aulularia), an aged Athenian named Euclio has a pot of gold. In the course of the play, Euclio moves the pot of gold several times because he is afraid that the gold... -
Answered a Question in Twelfth Night
In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, much of the humor and confusion is created by the exchange of various letters and jewels. The most prominent letter is the one Maria writes to make Malvolio, who is... -
Answered a Question in The War of the Worlds
This is a good question. In H.G. Wells' 1989 novel War of the Worlds, the novel's characters are seldom named (exceptions are Ogilvy, the astronomer who first detects activity coming from Mars, and... -
Answered a Question in Fahrenheit 451
One way to go about this task would be to find a complete copy of the text online and then do a word search (CTRL-F) for the word "book." Interestingly enough, the words "censor" and "censorship"... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
In Homer's Odyssey, Telemachus' quest to discover news about his father parallels (in some basic ways) his father's journey home from Troy. As the question notes, though, Telemachus' journey is... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
Odyssey 12 contains a very significant scene in the epic. In this book, Odysseus relates how he and his crew landed on the island of Thrinacia, which appears to have been under the control of the... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
"The Cyclopes have no council meetings, no code of law, but live in echoing caves on the mountain slopes, and each man lays down the law to his wives and children, and disregards his neighbours."... -
Answered a Question in 1984
In George Orwell's novel 1984, the main character, Winston Smith, begins a sexual affair with a dark-haired woman named Julia, who had slipped him a note at work that said "I love you". One... -
Answered a Question in 1984
In George Orwell's 1984, the main character, Winston Smith, experences a number of conflicts. His main conflicts involve controlling his thoughts and feelings. Smith's world of Oceania is... -
Answered a Question in Poetry
Rona Adshead's "Teenage Sky" is a poem that divides into four stanzas of five lines each. The lines are unrhymed and each line has between seven and ten syllables. As the poem's title... -
Answered a Question in Aeneid
Achilles is the focal point of Homer's Iliad, written in Greek in the latter half of the eighth century B.C.E. Seven centuries later, Virgil, writing in Latin, composed the Aeneid, whose... -
Answered a Question in Bitch
Carolyn Kizer's poem "Bitch" has a copyright date of 1984. The poem seems to be about the poet's reaction when encountering a man from her past, a man who did her some mental trauma, perhaps an... -
Answered a Question in Antigone
Jean Anouilh's handing of the chorus in his Antigone is much different than the way that Sophocles managed the chorus of his Antigone some 2000 years earlier. Anouilh has his chorus open the play... -
Answered a Question in Medea
In Euripides' Medea, the title character discovers that her husband Jason is going to divorce her and marry the daughter of Creon, who is the king of Corinth. Initially, Creon decides that Medea... -
Answered a Question in Iliad
In Homer's Iliad, the two main warriors on the Greek and Trojan sides are Achilles and Hector, respectively. Their differences are shaped by the various reasons that the Greeks and Trojans are... -
Answered a Question in Iliad
As Iliad 6 opens, the Greeks and Trojans have been fighting vigorously. As the Greeks begin to rally against the Trojans, the Trojan prophet Helenus advises Hector to head back toward the city,... -
Answered a Question in Oedipus Rex
As the title of Sophocles' play implies, the focal point of this tragedy is Oedipus, who was the son of Laius and Jocasta. The play mentions how Oedipus was left to die when he was a baby, rescued... -
Answered a Question in Iliad
Respect and disrespect are major themes in Homer's Iliad. The reason for Achilles' wrath is due to the disrespect shown to him by Agamemnon in Iliad I. When Agamemnon forces Achilles to hand over... -
Answered a Question in Iliad
The gods of the Homeric epics are anthropomorphic, which means, among other things, that they behave like human beings. Given this behavior, they also choose sides and play favorites like human... -
Answered a Question in History
Located on the Tiber River near the western coast of central Italy, the city of Rome is in an excellent location to encounter numerous different cultures. During the first few centuries of Rome’s... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
In Homer's Odyssey, the title character has been away from home for twenty years. This has created numerous imbalances within Odysseus' household. Odysseus' mother has died (he encounters... -
Answered a Question in 1984
This is an interesting question. In the Aristotlean sense of the word tragedy, Winston Smith is not a tragic hero. First, 1984 is not a tragic drama, which is what Aristotle has in mind. Second,... -
Answered a Question in 1984
Today has been a pretty boring day. I've been stuck inside all day long. I don't think we are going to be able to the hanging. Mom is too busy to take us. I guess I'll just have to keep... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
The journey and wanderings of Odysseus are the journey and wanderings that we all experience in life. Odysseus is seeking to establish his true identity. Like all of us, Odysseus is trying to be... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
Determining whether Odysseus is a "good" or "bad" leader is a difficult question. On the surface, he probably appears to have more lapses as a leader than successes. In Odyssey 9, he refuses to... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
In Odyssey 10, the issue of curiosity is more problematic for Odysseus’ men than for Odysseus himself. Early in the book, Odysseus’ men make a colossal mistake when they become curious about the... -
Answered a Question in Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
A common technique in Shakespeare and other playwrights is that of creating a play within a play or staging a play within a play. Sometimes, another play is literally staged, as in the case of... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
In Homer's Odyssey, the title character and his family are supported greatly by goddess Athena throughout the epic. As a goddess of wisdom, war, and weaving, Athena can be very useful to Odysseus... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
In Homer's Odysseus, bathing is a recurring event and is often a part of the hospitality (Greek: xenia) ritual. In Odyssey 5, before Calypso sends Odysseus from her island, she bathes him and... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
In Book 15 of Homer's Odyssey, we return to the story of Telemachus, who has been searching for his long lost father, Odysseus. In the opening of that book, the goddess Athene goes to Lacedaemon... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
After being away at Troy for ten years and then another ten years wandering the seas in an effort to get back home, Odysseus returns to his native land of Ithaca. Unfortunately, when he returns... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
In Odyssey 9, the title character tells his Phaeacian hosts about his adventures after leaving Troy. One of the places he and his crew stop is the land of the Lotus-eaters. In keeping with the... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
During Odysseus' attempt to return home to Ithaca after spending ten years helping the Greeks sack Troy, Odysseus is shipwrecked and washes ashore on Ogygia, the island home of the nymph Calypso.... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
In Book 9 of Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus and his crew arrive in the land of the Cyclopes. One of the major themes of this epic is xenia ("hospitality"). Throughout his journey home and even after... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
In Odyssey 18, we find Odysseus disguised as a beggar inside his own home on Ithaca. His mission is to destroy the 108 suitors who have been harassing his wife Penelope for the past several years.... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
In the ninth book of Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus and his men find themselves in the land of the Cyclopes. When they initially arrived at te cave of a certain Cyclops named Polyphemus, the Cyclops was... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
This is an interesting question. Given the fact that Odysseus had been away from home for twenty years, and given the fact that Odysseus had left Ithaca when their son Telemachus was extremely... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
In Odyssey 12, Odysseus and his men land on the island of Thrinacia, where the sun god kept a special herd of cattle. Odysseus warned his crew not to harm the sun god’s cattle. Unfortunately,...
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