By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Although perhaps the most famous symbolic quality associated with the colour white is ‘purity’, this summary doesn’t take into account the complexity and ambiguity of colour symbolism when it comes to the colour white: a colour which is at once all colours and no colour. In this post, we’re going to analyse the symbolism and meaning of the colour white as it has been used in works of literature and as it appears in mythology and religion.
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)
Perhaps the two most important and prominent qualities which dogs have symbolised in literature and myth down the ages are vigilance and loyalty. However, there are also some curious and lesser-known aspects of dog-symbolism which are worth probing; we’ll get to these in time.
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)
The story of Icarus is one of the most famous tales from Greek myth. The tale is often interpreted as being fundamentally about the dangers of hubris, with Icarus’ flight a metaphor for man’s overreaching of his limits (and coming to a sticky end as a result). But does the story really mean that? In order to determine the true meaning of the Icarus myth, let’s delve into it a little more.