See also: Hero (homonymy)

A hero is a real or fictitious character of the history or human Mythologie, whose facts are worth that one sings his gesture. The latter, edulcorated by the Golden Legend of hagiographal, passed in the popular Légende.

According to the cultures, a hero is a demigod, a legendary character, an ideal, a superman or simply a courageous person, showing abnegation.

The role of the hero is between the metaphysical aspiration, almost religious, to exceed the human condition, in particular from a physical point of view and between the more realistic aspiration to work for the good of the community, from a moral point of view. A third role, less avowable, is that of propaganda for a political or religious ideology in particular.

The ancient hero

The hero of ancient times is, that is to say mythical, having a direct relationship with the the Pantheon (it is the case of Hercules), or legendary, in which case it is frequently related to a guardian God.

the capacities of the mythical hero emanate from his statute of demigod.

An ancient thinker developed a theory on this subject, whose perenniality shows through in the remarks given above: Évhémère (see the english language version of the article connecting this design to the Worship of the personality as seen by the old Greeks).

The report/ratio is reversed: they are the top-facts of the men at the time of their life who divinisent them after their disappearance, making them immortal in the memory of their heirs.

• Mythology gréco-Roman

• Ulysses, unfortunate hero of the Odyssey ; human, it does not have to be able, except its Astuce (milked human).
• Hercules: twelve Work of Hercules ; to be able: its force.
• Achilles; to be able: Invulnerability, except on its heel, its fault .
• the heroes éponymes are those which légendairement found a city to which they give their name (Romulus for Rome);
• the epopee S are mythological accounts gathering many heroes, the such Homeric epopee of the Trojan War, Iliade, preceding the Odyssey.

See the article dedicated to Greek mythology Greek heroic Worship

The medieval hero Western

The function of the hero evolves/moves; it becomes, for the admiration of the populations, relays of the fusion of the capacity Régulier and secular realized in the person of the suzerain. Liege man , the hero thus gives by his epic of legitimacy to his lord.

Its values are the courage and of the virtues similar to those of the knighthood; leader or inspiring the armies, they are used to them as model.

• Celtic Mythology of the island of Brittany

• King Arthur, and his Knights of the Roundtable: Legend arthurienne , legend on the Celtic absence of king, forsaking the ground in the dark ages;
• Germanic Mythology
• Siegfried and the Ring of Nibelungen .
• See
• medieval world Anglo-Saxon
• Robin of Wood of: on the absence of the king Richard Lion-hearted, left guerroyer in Holy Land.
• Spanish medieval world
• Cid and its high-facts for each camp during the Reconquista.
• medieval world frankly (Matter of France):
• Roland, one of the nine valiant knights of Charlemagne: the Song of Roland . Hagiographal: Eginhard
• medieval world French
• Jeanne d' Arc, very prolific legend: to see Works inspired by Jeanne d' Arc .
• medieval Russia
• the Bogatyr, Knight-errant of the Russian steppe
• later European Culture
• Last nine Valiant knights

The medieval hero Eastern

• Holy Land
• Gesture of Saladin vis-a-vis the Cross ;
• Baghdad
• Legend of Sinbad the sailor
• Al-Andalus (Moorish Andalusia)
• Boabdil and its malfortune, romantic hero
• Japan
• Musashi Miyamoto

The hero of the modern time and comtemporaine

Thanks to the effects produced by the literature, the hero emblematic becomes fictional, such Don Quichotte in Spain. The later time of the Grandes discoveries gives to the world a new kind of hero: the Adventurous .

The exploits being written and either only oral, by journalists as much as by writers, the hero loses his legendary character to become more realistic and transitory. Of course remain the fictional heroes who perdurent.

• heroes of transition, as legendary as realistic

• pirate and corsairs of Roy in the Caribbean which show courage and temerity against an hegemonic naval power such Surcouf and blue Barbe
• the Mousquetaires such as D' Artagnan
• Cyrano of Bergerac
• the patriotic and national heroes:
• Hero of the Soviet Union, renamed Hero of Russia
• Hero of the Resistance, such Sophie Scholl in Germany and Jean Moulin and couples it Aubrac in France.
• Founding fathers of the United States, Cow-boy S: national heroes and champions carrying the values of the Democracy, révérés in the United States.
• heroes of the company:
• certain members of professions recognized for their abnegation, such as the firemen, rescuers, etc
• defenders of the common goods and values as the environment
• the sportsmen who carry out physical exploits thanks to medicine and with technologies
• the heroes of fiction:
• Comics: the Superman, though them Geste lost its superb one;
• Cartoons: List of hero of cartoon;
• Roleplays: Heroes of the black Eye | Livres of which YOU are the hero.
• Cinema: the heroes of the previous times provided a basket of inspiration for the cinema, useless to draw up the list of it (to refer rather to each biography).

Heroes in Fantasy

Appeared rather recently in the history and the rise to power of the literature Fantasy, the heroes incarnate here courageous men, carrying values such as courage, the hope, the abnegation. Often, the reader can or tries to recognize himself in these outstanding characters.

• Aragorn, character of the Seigneur of the Rings , which incarnates the fight beyond any hope

• Eowyn, woman who disguises themselves as a man in order to be able to fight for her fatherland
• Harry Potter, which also illustrates to him a whole combat against darkness
• the Fou, character of Robin Hobb, which accepts its destiny of hero of the change of the world even if it must die

See too

Random links:

Vault-of-Fougeretz | Office of affrêtement | Sea-bream (sailing ship) | County of Sanpete | Untzaga-Apregindana