War of the Titans

War of the Titans

My poster on the Titans vs. Olympians is inspired by Henry Ferrini’s “Polis is This.” The movie is based on the views of Charles Olson and the changes that are occurring in Gloucester. Newer traditions were replacing old ones. Newer buildings were being built over old buildings and Gloucester seemed to be changing for the worst. Charles Olson didn’t want to be part of Gloucester because it changed so much. “My memory is history in time.” Just as new technology and taller buildings took over the older traditional Gloucester, Zeus and the newer Olympian god’s took overthrew the Titan’s rule over the world.
The Titans were gods before the Olympians took over. During their rule they were mostly associated with the planets. They were children of Uranus, the god of the heavens, and Gaia, goddess of the earth. Gaia was Uranus’s mother and mate. She had a deep hatred for Uranus because he imprisoned her youngest children in Tartarus so that they would never be seen. Uranus felt like they were hideous since they were gigantic abnormal gods because Hecatonchires had one hundred arms and Cyclopes had one eye. Cronus, who was one of Gaia’s children, envied his father power and with encouragement from his mother and support of his brothers he revolted against his father, killed him with a sickle, and threw him off the face of the earth. As Uranus was falling off the earth he called his sons “titenes” which means straining ones. He called them that because they crossed the line and thus comes the name Titans. Before Uranus was overthrown he prophesized that one of Cronus’s sons would overthrow him as well just as he has overthrow his father so to prevent that from happening Cronus would always swallow all this children whole.
Cronus’s wife Rhea secretly had her 6th child, Zeus, and hid him away from Cronus. She gave Cronus a rock wrapped in a blanket instead and Cronus swallowed that instead thinking it was his son. When Zeus grew up he was given a potion to give to Cronus which made Cronus vomit up all the children that he swallowed including Demeter, Hera, Hades, Hestia, and Poseidon. Together with Zeus and they were known as the Olympian gods and for an eleven year time period they fought with the aid of Cyclops and Hecatonchires against the Titans in a series of battle and wars known as Titanomachy.
In my poster I tried to incorporate things that I learned from my research into the poster such as images from the myth of the Titan wars but as a parallel to that I also drew into my poster a picture of a fishing boat riding on a wave, trying to overcome the new trains and the buildings. I drew it this way because new changes are occurring in Gloucester and there is conflict between old and new almost like a war. For the section of my poster that includes mythology I drew the earth and stars around it to represent Uranus and his wife Gaia. I also drew a picture of Rhea handing over a blanket of rocks, Zeus, Cyclopes and some weapons from the sickle to Poseidon’s trident. I drew all of these things with a huge fire in the background to emphasis the conflict between the new gods and old gods.
Charles Olson showed remorse for the changes happening in his hometown. He also felt “remorse for the nature of mankind when he saw the bombing of Hiroshima.” He spoke wisely about “never putting yourself in a position where you would have to go backward.” Charles Olson himself wished that he could go back to the time of the Titans and Olympians to change the way everything would work out in the future of humanity.