Personae at Troynovant: an alternate, Dramatic Contents via emanant Olympians, some individuals or viewpoints within the Troad
These Personae at Troynovant are not enshrined deities upon burnished thrones, nor do we assert that they are all of the same kind, quality, or rank. Works by all our creative subjects are readily found in our Review indexes, whereas these Personae indexes are additionally helpful for works about them, or quotations or mentions within other items here. Note that not all tangential mentions may be listed.
The named individuals are dramatic viewpoints in Troy-town, vivid ways of perception, whose acts and ideas may pop up in the oddest corners. We present some eminent, emanant Olympians as speaking through texts in our fabulous Troy of historical imagination — including its environs, the Troad; with its prospects, airy Troynovant. In relational-database terminology, our Personae are alternate views of the geographical structure. Overflowing personalizations if you like, to coax ourselves to think about and enjoy the recombining and vivifying of our material.
... whose voice divine
Following, above th' Olympian Hill I soar,
Above the flight of Pegasean wing.
The meaning, not the Name I call: ...
John Milton
Paradise Lost, VII.2-5 (1674)
Complete Poems and Major Prose
edited by Merritt Y. Hughes
|
|
|
|
We expect more Olympians will be presented.
|
|
[Troy. Inside Cressida's house.]
Nestor (to Hector):
I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft,
Labouring for destiny, make cruel way
Through ranks of Greekish youth, and I have seen thee
As hot as Perseus spur thy Phrygian steed,
And seen thee scorning forfeits and subduements,
When thou hast hung th' advanced sword i' th' air,
Not letting it decline on the declined,
That I have said unto my standers-by,
‘Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life'.
And I have seen thee pause and take thy breath,
When that a ring of Greeks have hemmed thee in,
Like an Olympian, wrestling. This have I seen;
But this thy countenance, still locked in steel,
I never saw till now.
William Shakespeare
Troilus and Cressida, 4.7.67-80
|
|
|
Emanant:
Issuing or flowing forth; emanating;
passing forth into an act, or making itself apparent by an effect; —
said of mental acts; as, an emanant volition.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
|
Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer
(The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog)
Caspar David Friedrich, 1818
|
|
In the foreground there is the feeling of fullness, of power that seeks to overflow, the happiness of high tension, the consciousness of wealth that would give and bestow: the noble human being, too, helps the unfortunate, but not, or almost not, from pity, but prompted more by an urge begotten by an excess of power. The noble human being honors himself as one who is powerful, also as one who has power over himself, who knows how to speak and be silent ....
It is the powerful who understand how to honor; this is their art, their realm of invention.
Friedrich Nietzsche
"What Is Noble"; section 260
Beyond Good and Evil (1886)
translated by Walter Kaufmann
|
|
If you value our noble heritage,
please consider Robert A. Heinlein's suggestion:
pay it forward.
|
|
About our overlayered structure for this Troy-town maze of cultural stratigraphy — at Troynovant an entry is a review of
book or
story, of
film or
reel or
soundie,
if largely about a particular title; a glance or counterpoint to an article or curiosity is an
illuminant; a
folly mines a vein of humor, or if more pointed a
satire; a
memoir is a firsthand reminiscence; a
postcard showcases a flat-carded Scene of Passage; a
compilation gathers quotations stoking Trains of Thought;
otherwise generally an essay.
|
Strata: an alternate Contents via topical StrataLinking.
|
|