The myth of Persephone and the conflict of motherhood in Rita Dove’s Mother love
Keywords:
Classical myth, Persephone and Demeter, female bonds, motherhood, conflictAbstract
This article aims to pin down the extent to which modernity introduces new ways of understanding and representing the mythical bond between Persephone and Demeter. In order to achieve this, I will first provide a critical review of the manner in which classical authors have interpreted the mother-daughter relationship; and, secondly, I will briefly refer to the most influential contemporary treatments of the bond. Thirdly, I will discuss the vision Rita Dove develops in her collection of poems Mother Love (1995) as well as the strategies she uses to depart from the idealised vision of the bond. This analysis will bring attention to Dove’s particular understanding of the Persephone-Demeter relationship, one which detaches from the general tendency.
Downloads
References
Anónimo. 2001. Himno Homérico a Deméter. Trad. José B. Torres Guerra. Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra.
Apolodoro. 2004. Biblioteca mitológica. Trad. Julia García Moreno. Madrid: Alianza editorial.
Baquílides. 1988. Odas y Fragmentos. Trad. Fernando Garci?a Romero. Madrid: Editorial Gredos.
Boland, Eavan. 1995. Collected Poems. Manchester: Carcanet.
Broumas, Olga. 1977. Beginning With O. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Dame, Enid. 1985. Persephone. The New York Quarterly, 28: 60-63.
Dove, Rita. 1995. Mother Love. Nueva York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Ellis, Kate. 1980. Matrilineal Descent. En Rod Tulloss, David Keller y Ostriker, Alicia (eds.) US 1: An Anthology, 31-34. Nueva Jersey: Wise.
Fry, Nan. 1991. Relearning the Dark. Washington: Washington Writers' Publishing House.
H.D. 1983. Collected Poems 1914-1944. Ed. Louis L. Martz. Nueva York: New Directions.
Hesíodo. 2000. Teogonía. Trabajos y Días. Escudo. Certamen. Trad. Adelaida Martín Sánchez, & María Ángeles Martín Sánchez. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
Homero. 2000. Odisea. Trad. José Luis Calvo. Madrid: Cátedra.
Homero. 2010. Ilíada. Trad. Emilio Crespo Güemes. Madrid: Editorial Gredos.
Kizer, Carolyn. 1961. The Ungrateful Gardens. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
McCallum, Shara. 1999. The Water Between Us. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Ostriker, Alicia. 2009. Demeter to Persephone. Ploughshares, 35(1): 120-121.
Ovidio. 1990. Fastos. Trad. Manuel Antonio Marcos Casquero. Salamanca: Universidad de León. Servicio de Publicaciones.
Ovidio. 2007. Metamorfosis. Trad. Antonio Ramírez de Verger y Fernando Navarro Antolín. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
Smith, Stevie. 1975. The Collected Poems of Stevie Smith. Londres: Allen Lane.
Virgilio. 2011. Eneida. Trad. Luis Rivero García, Juan A. Estévez Sola, Miryam Librán Moreno, y Antonio Ramírez de Verger. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.
Zinnes, Harriet. 1967. Demeter to Persephone. Prairie Schooner, 41(1): 86-87.
ESTUDIOS
Cixous, Hélène. 1995 [1976]. La risa de la medusa: ensayos sobre la escritura. Barcelona: Anthropos.
Daly, Mary. 1978. Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston: Beacon.
Dove, Rita. 1987. Thomas and Beulah: Poems. Pittsburgh: Carnegie-Mellon University Press.
Dove, Rita. 1991. Grace Notes: Poems. Nueva York: Norton.
Firestone, Shulamith. 2003. The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. Farrar: Straus y Giroux.
Foley, Helene P. 1994. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary, and Interpretive Essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400849086
Harrison, Jane Ellen. 1961. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Londres: Merlin.
Lofgren, Lotta. 1996. Partial Horror: Fragmentation and Healing in Rita Dove's "Mother Love". Callaloo, 19(1): 135-142. https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.1996.0021
Louis, Margot K. 2009. Persephone Rises, 1860-1927: Mythography, Gender, and the Creation of a New Spirituality. Burlington: Ashgate.
Millett, Kate. 2016. Sexual Politics. Nueva York: Columbia University Press.
Morales Ortiz, Alicia. 2007. La maternidad y las madres en la tragedia griega. En Antonio Calderón, Esteban y Morales Ortiz, Alicia (eds.) La madre en la Antigüedad: literatura, sociedad y religión, 129-167. Madrid: Signifer.
Rich, Adrienne. 1976. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. Nueva York: W. W. Norton and Company.
Unceta Gómez, Luis y Carlos Sánchez Pérez (eds.). 2019. En los márgenes de Roma. La Antigüedad romana en la cultura de masas contemporánea. Madrid: Catarata.