Memory - Ottawa, Ontario
Posted by: Weathervane
N 45° 25.534 W 075° 42.037
18T E 445190 N 5030465
This bronze sculpture of is located at the foot of the monument in tribute to Thomas D'arcy McGee which stands on the West side of Parliament Hill and behind the Centre Block.
Waymark Code: WMY7CY
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 05/04/2018
Views: 11
A plaque a short distance away from the monument reads as follows:
Thomas D'Arcy McGee (1825-1868) was a journalist, historian, poet and politician who was renowned as a dynamic and persuasive speaker. The Irish Immigrant was an outspoken advocate of minority rights and one of Confederation's strongest supporters. His vocal opposition to Fenianism (an Irish revolutionary movement) likely led to his assassination in 1868. In this monument, McGee is shown delivering a speech while a female figure, representing Memory, listens.
Mnemosyne
Although she was categorized as one of the Titans in the Theogony, Mnemosyne didn’t quite fit that distinction. Titans were hardly worshiped in Ancient Greece, and were thought of as so archaic as to belong to the ancient past. They resembled historical figures more than anything else. Mnemosyne, on the other hand, traditionally appeared in the first few lines of many oral epic poems?. She appears in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, among others—as the speaker called upon her aid in accurately remembering and performing the poem he was about to recite. Mnemosyne is thought to have been given the distinction of “Titan” because memory was so important and basic to the oral culture of the Greeks that they deemed her one of the essential building blocks of civilization in their creation myth.
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