MSU English 213

First Post

Eros and Thanatos, love and death, are at least two of the central themes we will see this semester. We can't talk about sex without discussing(or not discussing) love just as we can't examine life in any context without understanding the influence of death. Maybe the past, represented by death, is how we base our love for life. Or maybe the idea of death and sex is simply why I like vampire movies. Underworld and its sequel are terrific!

The Homeric Hymns of Demeter and Hermes are stories which apply the changing nature of the human condition to Olympian gods which are mostly immune to the negative aspects of the human condition. I read them last night when I was very tired and my notes say "both gods experience change". I don't remember writing this or what "change(s)" this references. So I look forward finding out. It might be when Demeter was giving "honor" to the baby and when Hermes killed the cow. I have "cow" and "threshold" written down together. Hermes tells his dad Zeus he "didn't cross the threshold", preceded by a mention of the cows. If you cross the threshold, you are no longer innocent because there is no going back. This is kind of like finishing the first test of the semester. After that, it's not possible to pull out. The vortex has you.

Demeter


Hermes

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