Zeus and Creation

Creation, the female principle, precedes action. It starts from the absence of any context; it is no coincidence that Gaia is the sibling of Chaos (Campbell, 1987, p. 3). Unfolding creation constructs a context in which action, the male principle, may proceed. The context had to be a present fact, and it had to be acted upon through the behavior of cosmic personalities, before any mere mortal could come to a conclusion about why the facts of given experience are as they are (or anyway seem to be immutably as they are). Zeus's conquest of the universe helps explain, for example, the intractability of the idea that, whatever contingencies may arise in human experience, male strength and privilege in human culture and history are a matter of cosmic inevitability and rightness.

Nothing about the triumph of the male principle means that contingency may not get in the way of the

. . .
s's srength. It is this that enables Kronos to become the king of the gods (Campbell, 1987, p. 14). The violence of Kronos's "cunning" castration of Ouranos, together with the discarding of male organs, could be taken as enough of an outrage against cosmic nature to justify any retribution Ouranos might conceive. The birth of Aphrodite, goddess of sexual desire, from Ouranos's genitals, has a certain logic about it, according to Campbell (p. 38). He says that this birth "repeats the pattern" (p. 39) of a birth of an aspect of experience from its opposite. Campbell focuses on the physical element of semen, or the sea foam, that generates Aphrodite. But the meaningful opposites are not so much physical as logical, and more than this psychological. That birth introduces not only desire but also eternal and problematic contingency into sexual encounter, whether between human beings or between the gods and humans. For Aphrodite is a personified contradiction, generated out of anger and, as often as not, generating between sex partners psychoemotional cleavage as powerful as the psychophysical intimacy that the partners seek. Refinement of motive, exploitation, and craft continue as the generations of cosmic creation continue, and it
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
According Campbell, Kronos Hesiod, Ouranos Ouranos's, Ultimately Kronos, Chaos Campbell, Chaos Meanwhile, , Gaia Ouranos, Olympos Hesiod, Earth Gaia, hesiod 1987, creative principle, human experience, campbell 1987, hesiod's theogony, hesiod's theogony newburyport, according campbell, crafty kronos, female principle, course theogony, theogony newburyport, focus information inc, theogony increasing contingency, attempts eliminate ambiguity, theogony newburyport mass,
Approximate Word count = 2003
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Zeus and Creation