By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The story of Hero and Leander is not the most famous tragic love story from classical mythology, but after all, there are quite a few other such stories to choose from. When it comes to classical myth, we might turn to the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, Dido and Aeneas, or Theseus and Ariadne, or Echo and Narcissus, or any number of other doomed love stories.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
To be ‘between Scylla and Charybdis’ is, if you will, to be caught between a rock and a hard place – in other words, between two equally unappealing dangers or prospects. But how did the phrase come into being? What are its origins, and who on earth were Scylla and Charybdis?
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Midas is known for two things: being given the ears of an ass, and turning everything he touched into gold. The latter of these was his reward from Dionysus, although he soon discovered that his gift was a bane rather than a blessing, and that he couldn’t even do simple things like take a drink without the water turning into gold. Curiously, like many other classic myths, this one may have arisen as an origin story to explain the rich gold deposits in the river Pactolus.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The myth of Oedipus is one of the most famous tragedies in all of classical mythology. But how did this Greek myth come about? And what does it mean? Before we address these questions, it might be worth recapping the story of Oedipus in the form of a brief plot summary:
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Greek and Roman mythology has been a constant source of inspiration for poets down the centuries. Whether it’s tragic figures or love stories, or tales of magic and the supernatural, classical myths have retained their power down the millennia, and poets have often made use of these memorable tales when writing everything from love lyrics to dramatic monologues.