A hero (from Greek ἥρως hērōs^[1]), in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, the offspring of a mortal and a deity,^[2] their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion. Sir Galahad is a knight of King Arthur 's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. George Frederic Watts, OM ( 23 February, 1817 – 1 July, 1904; sometimes spelled "George Frederick Watts" was a popular The Ancient Greek language is the historical stage in the development of the Hellenic language family spanning the Archaic (c Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and Heroes the nature of the world and the origins and significance History The concept of folklore developed as part of the 19th century ideology of Romantic nationalism, leading to the reshaping of oral traditions to serve modern ideological The term " demigod " meaning "half-god" is used to describe mythological figures whose one parent was a god and whose other parent was human "Cult Hero" redirects here For the Cure sideproject called Cult Hero see I'm a Cult Hero Hero cults were one of the most Greek religion encompasses the collection of beliefs and rituals practiced in Ancient Greece in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices.

Later, hero (male) and heroine (female) came to refer to characters that, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self-sacrifice, that is, heroism, for some greater good, originally of martial courage or excellence but extended to more general moral excellence. Gallantry redirects here Or see Gallant for other meanings Courage, also known as bravery, will, intrepidity Sacrifice (from a Middle English verb meaning "to make sacred" from Old French, from Latin sacrificium: sacr, "sacred" Value theory encompasses a range of approaches to understanding how why and to what degree humans should or do value things whether the thing is a person idea object or anything else According to the Random House Dictionary, the term warrior has two meanings Morality (from the Latin la moralitas "manner character proper behavior" has three principal meanings

Stories of heroism may serve as moral examples. Moral example is trust in the Moral core of another a Role model, without the obvious mediation of any theory or language In classical antiquity, hero cults, veneration of deified heroes such as Heracles, Perseus, or Achilles, played an important role in Ancient Greek religion. In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles ("glory of Hera " or Perseus, Perseos, or Perseas ( Greek: Περσεύς, Περσέως, Περσέας) the Legendary founder "Achilleus" redirects here For the emperor with this name see Achilleus (emperor. Greek religion encompasses the collection of beliefs and rituals practiced in Ancient Greece in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices. Later emperors employed hero worship for their own apotheosis, that is, cult of personality. A cult of personality or personality cult arises when a country's leader uses Mass media to create a heroic public image through unquestioning flattery and praise

Contents 1 Etymology 2 Classical hero cults 2.1 Analysis 3 The validity of the "hero" in historical studies 4 Heroic myth 5 Folk and fairy tales 6 Operatic hero 7 The modern fictional hero 8 Hero-as-self 9 See also 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External links

Etymology

The literal meaning of the word is "protector", "defender" or "guardian" and etymologically it is thought to be cognate with the name of the goddess Hera, the guardian of marriage; the postulated original forms of these words being *ἥρFως, hērwōs, and *ἭρFα, Hērwā, respectively. In the Olympian pantheon of classical Greek Mythology, Hera (ˈhɪərə or /ˈhɛrə/ Greek) or Here ( in Ionic and Homer It is also thought to be a cognate of the Latin verb servo (original meaning: to preserve whole) and of the Avestan verb haurvaiti (to keep vigil over), although the original Proto-Indoeuropean root is unclear. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Avestan is an Eastern Old Iranian language that was used to compose the sacred hymns and canon of the Zoroastrian Avesta. The roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE are basic Morphemes carrying a Lexical meaning

Classical hero cults

Main article: Hero cult

Hero cults could be of the utmost political importance. "Cult Hero" redirects here For the Cure sideproject called Cult Hero see I'm a Cult Hero Hero cults were one of the most When Cleisthenes divided the Athenians into new demes for voting, he consulted Delphi about what heroes he should name each division after. Cleisthenes (Κλεισθένης also Clisthenes or Kleisthenes) was a noble Athenian of the Alcmaeonid family The History of Athens is one of the longest of any city in Europe and in the world Ancient Greece, a deme ( δῆμος) was a subdivision of Attica, the region of Greece surrounding Athens. Delphi ( Greek,) ( pronounce and dialectal forms) is an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western According to Herodotus, the Spartans attributed their conquest of Arcadia to their theft of the bones of Orestes from the Arcadian town of Tegea. Herodotus of Halicarnassus ( Greek: Hēródotos Halikarnāsseús) was a Greek Historian who lived in the 5th century BC ( 484 BC&ndash The city of Sparta ( Doric Σπάρτα Attic Σπάρτη Arcadia or Arkadía ( Greek Αρκαδία is a region of Greece in the Peloponnesus. In Greek mythology, Orestes (in English /ɔ'ɹɛstiːz/ and in Greek,) was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon Tegea was a settlement in ancient Greece and it is also a municipality in modern Arcadia, Greece, with its seat in the village Stadio.

Heroes in myth often had close but conflicted relationships with the gods. Thus Heracles's name means "the glory of Hera", even though he was tormented all his life by the queen of the gods. In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles ("glory of Hera " or In the Olympian pantheon of classical Greek Mythology, Hera (ˈhɪərə or /ˈhɛrə/ Greek) or Here ( in Ionic and Homer This was even more true in their cult appearances. Perhaps the most striking example is the Athenian king Erechtheus, whom Poseidon killed for choosing Athena over him as the city's patron god. Erechtheus (Ἐρεχθεύς in Greek Mythology was the name of a King of Athens, and a secondary name for two other characters In Homer In Greek mythology, Poseidon ( Greek:; Latin: Neptūnus) was the god of the Sea and as "Earth-Shaker" ATHENA was an Antimatter research project that took place at the AD Ring at CERN. When the Athenians worshiped Erechtheus on the Acropolis, they invoked him as Poseidon Erechtheus. The Acropolis of Athens is the best known Acropolis (high city The "Sacred Rock" in the world

In the Hellenistic Greek East, dynastic leaders such as the Ptolemies or Seleucids were also proclaimed heroes. This article focuses on the cultural aspects of the Hellenistic age for the historical aspects see Hellenistic period. The Ptolemaic dynasty (sometimes also known as the Lagids, from the name of Ptolemy I's father Lagus) was a Hellenistic Macedonian royal family The Seleucid Empire /sə'lusɪd/ ( 312 - 63 BC) was a Hellenistic empire i This was an influence on the later, Roman apotheosis of their emperors.

Analysis

The classic hero often came with what Lord Raglan (a descendant of the FitzRoy Somerset, Lord Raglan) termed a "potted biography" made up of some two dozen common traditions that ignored the line between historical fact and mythology. Major FitzRoy Richard Somerset 4th Baron Raglan (1885–1964 was a British soldier beekeeper farmer and Independent scholar. Field Marshal FitzRoy James Henry Somerset 1st Baron Raglan, GCB, PC ( 30 September 1788 &ndash 28 June 1855) For example, the circumstances of the hero's conception are unusual; an attempt is made by a powerful male at his birth to kill him; he is spirited away; reared by foster-parents in a far country. Routinely the hero meets a mysterious death, often at the top of a hill; his body is not buried; he leaves no successors; he has one or more holy sepulchres. A sepulchre, or sepulcher, is a type of Tomb or Burial chamber

Most European indigenous religions feature heroes in some form.

The validity of the "hero" in historical studies

Further information: Philosophy of history  and Great man theory

Philosopher Hegel gave a central role to the "hero", personalized by Napoleon, as the incarnation of a particular culture's Volksgeist, and thus of the general Zeitgeist. Philosophy of history or historiosophy is an area of Philosophy concerning the eventual significance if any of human History. The Great man theory is a Theory held by some that aims to explain history by the impact of "Great men" or Heroes highly influential individuals Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821 was a French military and political leader who had a significant impact on the History of Europe. Zeitgeist ( pronounced) is a German language expression literally translated Zeit time; Geist spirit, meaning "the Zeitgeist ( pronounced) is a German language expression literally translated Zeit time; Geist spirit, meaning "the Thomas Carlyle's 1841 On Heroes and Hero Worship and the Heroic in History also accorded a key function to heroes and great men in history. Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881 was a Scottish essayist satirist and historian whose work was highly influential during the Victorian era. Carlyle centered history on the biography of a few central individuals such as Oliver Cromwell or Frederick the Great. A biography (from the Greek words bíos (βίος meaning "life" and gráphein (γράφειν meaning "to write" is an account Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 Old Style &ndash 3 September 1658 Old Style) was an English military and political leader best known Frederick II (Friedrich II January 24 1712 August 17 1786) was a King of Prussia (1740&ndash1786 from the His heroes were political and military figures, the founders or topplers of states. His history of great men, of geniuses good and evil, sought to organize change in the advent of greatness.

Explicit defenses of Carlyle's position were rare in the second part of the 20th century. Most philosophers of history contend that the motive forces in history can best be described only with a wider lens than the one he used for his portraits. For example, Karl Marx argued that history was determined by the massive social forces at play in "class struggles", not by the individuals by whom these forces are played out. Class struggle is the active expression of Class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective After Marx, Herbert Spencer wrote at the end of the 19th century: "You must admit that the genesis of the great man depends on the long series of complex influences which has produced the race in which he appears, and the social state into which that race has slowly grown. Herbert Spencer ( April 27, 1820 – December 8, 1903) was an English Philosopher; prominent classical liberal The term race or racial group usually refers to the concept of categorizing Humans into Populations or groups on the basis of various sets . . . Before he can remake his society, his society must make him. "^[3]

Thus, as Foucault pointed out in his analysis of the historical and political discourse, history was mainly the science of the sovereign, until its reversion by the "historical and political popular discourse". Philosophy of history or historiosophy is an area of Philosophy concerning the eventual significance if any of human History. Sovereignty is the exclusive Right to control a Government, a country, a people or oneself

The Annales School, led by Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch and Fernand Braudel would contest the exaggeration of the role of individual subjects in history. The Annales School (aˈnal(ə in French is a style of Historiography developed by French Historians in the 20th century Lucien Febvre ( July 22 1878 - September 11, 1956) was a French Historian best known for the role he played in establishing Marc Léopold Benjamin Bloch ( July 6, 1886 – June 16, 1944) was a French Historian of medieval France in the Fernand Braudel ( August 24 1902 &ndash November 27 1985) was the foremost French historian of the postwar era Not to be confused with the subiectum or Hypokeimenon in Aristotelianism Indeed, Braudel distinguished various time-scales, one accorded to the life of an individual, another accorded to the life of a few human generations, and the last one to civilizations, by which geography, economics and demography play a role considerably more decisive than that of individual subjects. A Civilization is a society in which large numbers of people share a variety of common elements Geography (from Greek γεωγραφία - geografia) is the study of the Earth and its lands features inhabitants and phenomena Economics is the social science that studies the production distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Demography is the statistical study of all Populations. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic population that is one that changes over Foucault's conception of an "archeology" or Althusser's work were attempts at linking together these various heterogeneous layers composing history. Louis Pierre Althusser (Pronunciation altuˡseʁ ( October 16, 1918 – October 22, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher.

Heroic myth

The concept of a story archetype of the standard "hero's quest" or monomyth pervasive across all cultures is somewhat controversial. Journey to the West ( is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. This article is about the word for other meanings see Quest (disambiguation A quest is a journey towards a goal used in Mythology Expounded mainly by Joseph Campbell, it illustrates several uniting themes of hero stories that despite vastly different peoples and beliefs hold similar ideas of what a hero represents. Joseph John Campbell ( March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) was an American Mythology Professor, Writer

Some argue that while there may be many stories that fit the monomyth, the belief in such a truly ubiquitous form may be due in part simply to neglecting those that do not and/or do.

Folk and fairy tales

Vladimir Propp, in his analysis of the Russian fairy tale, concluded that a fairy tale had only eight dramatis personae, of which one was the hero,^[4] and his analysis has been widely applied to non-Russian tales. Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp (Владимир Яковлевич Пропп &mdash 22 August 1970) was a Russian formalist scholar who A fairy tale or fairy story is a fictional Story that may feature folkloric characters (such as fairies, enchantments]] often involving Dramatis personæ is a Latin phrase (literally 'the masks of the drama' used to refer collectively to the characters in a dramatic work—-commonly employed The actions fell into a hero's sphere included

1. departure on the quest
2. reacting to the test of the donor
3. marrying the princess

He distinguished between seekers and victim-heroes. In fairy tales a donor is a character that tests the hero (and sometimes other characters as well and provides magical assistances to the hero while he succeeds A villain could initiate the issue by kidnapping the hero or driving him out; these were victim heroes. On the other hand, a villain could rob the hero, or kidnap someone close to him, or, without the villain's intervention, the hero could realize that he lacked something and set out to find it; these heroes are seekers. Victims may appear in tales with seeker heroes, but the tale does not follow them both. ^[5]

Operatic hero

In opera and musical theatre, the hero/ heroine is often played by a tenor/soprano (more vulnerable characters are played by lyric voices while stronger characters are portrayed by spinto or dramatic voices. Opera is an art form in which Singers and Musicians perform a Dramatic work (called an opera which combines a text (called a Libretto Musical theatre is a form of Theatre combining Music, Songs spoken Dialogue and Dance. The tenor is the highest male voice within the Modal register, just above the Baritone voice This article is related to a series of articles under the main article Voice type. A voice type is a particular kind of human Singing voice perceived as having certain identifying qualities or characteristics A voice type is a particular kind of human Singing voice perceived as having certain identifying qualities or characteristics A voice type is a particular kind of human Singing voice perceived as having certain identifying qualities or characteristics )

The modern fictional hero

"Hero" or "heroine" is sometimes used to simply describe the protagonist of a story, or the love interest, a usage which can conflict with the more-than-human expectations of heroism. The Protagonist or main character is the central figure of a story. William Makepeace Thackeray gave Vanity Fair the subtitle A Novel without a Hero. William Makepeace Thackeray (ˈθækərɪ 18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863 was an English Novelist of the 19th century Vanity Fair A Novel without a Hero is a Novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in 1847-48 that satirizes society in early ^[6] The larger-than-life hero is a more common feature of fantasy (particularly sword and sorcery and epic fantasy) than more realist works. Fantasy is a Genre that uses magic and other Supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting Sword and sorcery ( S&S) is a fantasy subgenre generally characterized by swashbuckling heroes engaged in exciting and violent conflicts High fantasy, or epic fantasy, is a subgenre of Fantasy fiction that is set in invented or parallel worlds. ^[7]

In modern movies, the hero is often simply an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances, who, despite the odds being stacked against him or her, typically prevails in the end. In some movies (especially action movies), a hero may exhibit characteristics such as superhuman strength and endurance that sometimes makes him nearly invincible. Action movies are a Film genre where action sequences such as fights, Shootouts Stunts Car chases or explosions either take precedence Physical strength is the ability of a person or animal to exert Force on physical objects using muscles. Endurance (also called sufferance) is the ability for humans to exert themselves through aerobic or Anaerobic exercise for relatively long periods of time Often a hero in these situations has a foil, the villain, typically a charismatic evildoer who represents, leads, or himself embodies the struggle the hero is up against. A foil is a character that contrasts with another character usually the protagonist and so highlights various facets of the main character's personality Post-modern fictional works have fomented the increased popularity of the anti-hero, who does not follow common conceptions of heroism. ^[8]

Hero-as-self

It has been suggested in an article by Roma Chatterji that the hero or more generally protagonist is first and foremost a symbolic representation of the person who is experiencing the story while reading, listening or watching; thus the relevance of the hero to the individual relies a great deal on how much similarity there is between the two. The Protagonist or main character is the central figure of a story. The idea of "identifying" with the hero takes on a very real meaning, in that the hero/protagonist becomes our only key to becoming part of the story rather than remaining merely an observer. If the hero is one with which the observer can't identify very well, the story can seem inaccessible, distant or even insincere. Conversely, insomuch as the reader or viewer relates to and is therefore capable of becoming the hero, they can feel pangs of remorse at the hero's defeats, and relish in his or her triumphs.

The most compelling reason for the hero-as-self interpretation of stories and myths is the human inability to view the world from any perspective but a personal one. The almost universal notion of the hero or protagonist and its resulting hero identification allows us to experience stories in the only way we know how: as ourselves.

One potential drawback of the necessity of hero identification means that a hero is often more a combination of symbols than a representation of an actual person. In order to appeal to a wide range of individuals, the author often relegates the hero to a "type" of person which everyone already is or wishes themselves to be: a "good" person; a "brave" person; a "self-sacrificing" person. The most problematic result of this sort of design is the creation of a character so universal that we can all identify with somewhat, but none can identify with completely. In regard to the observer's personal interaction with the story, it can give the feeling of being "mostly involved," but never entirely.

See also

• Anti-hero
• Bildungsroman
• Byronic hero
• Comparative mythology
• Culture hero
• Epic hero
• Folk hero
• Leadership
• List of action heroes
• List of women warriors in folklore, literature, and popular culture
• Monarchical hero
• Reluctant hero
• Romantic hero
• Superhero
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces
• Tragic hero
• Villain
• Xia (philosophy)

References

Further reading

External links

• Exploring the Function of Heroes and Heroines in Children's Literature from around the World
• The British Hero - online exhibition from screenonline, a website of the British Film Institute, looking at British heroes of film and television. screenonline is a Web site devoted to the history of British film and television, and to Social history as revealed by film and television The British Film Institute ( BFI) is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to encourage the development of the arts of film television
• Example of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey
• The Hero Myth, Transcendence, and Joseph Campbell - by Robert Novella, discusses Joseph Campbell's work as well as the appeal of the hero myth. The New England Skeptical Society (NESS is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to promoting science and reason
• Political heroes
• Listen to BBC Radio 4's In Our Time programme on Heroism

© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic