From Myth to Logos in Greek Studies

This chapter analyses Pater’s understanding of myth and its creation in his Greek Studies (1895). Although the book was published posthumously, the majority of its essays appeared within a five-year period, beginning in 1876 with ‘The Myth of Demeter and Persephone’ and ‘A Study of Dionysus’. Pater follows a three-stage mythopoeic process, beginning with the myths of the people, which are collected and organized by the poets, and finally sculpted into ethical archetypes, conveying the development from myth to logos. Apollo comes to exemplify the archetypal character for Pater, influenced by Plato’s reverence for the god as the embodiment of reason, light, sanity, and music. Around the time of these first studies on myth, in their account of how traditional stories are created and characters are formed, Pater first turns his hand to publishing fiction.

Persephone's Nightmare

Translation of a poem by Nikos Gatsos that sets modern Greek environmental issues against Greek mythology: Eleusis is the setting for the most important ancient shrine of Demeter and Persephone, goddesses associated with Earth’s fertility, and a modern industrial wasteland.

Demeter and Persephone

Chapter 2 concentrates on representations of Demeter and Persephone in the Syracusan odes. The goddesses are important for two reasons. First, the Deinomenids were ancestral priests of Demeter and Persephone in Sicily and the goddesses therefore could easily be linked to the rule of this family of tyrants. On the other hand, worship of the two goddesses was widespread throughout Sicily. This chapter argues that references to Demeter and Persephone in epinician poetry for Hieron and members of his circle promote and celebrate Syracusan and Deinomenid expansion throughout the island of Sicily by aligning pan-Sicilian and Deinomenid interests and rooting them in the island’s landscape. The first section surveys the material remains for the goddesses in Sicily before exploring discussions of the goddesses in mythological, historical, and literary sources. An analysis of Pindar’s Nemean 1 then proposes that, while the link between Arethusa and Alpheos represents the close tie between Syracuse and the Panhellenic sanctuary at Olympia, Pindar’s references to Demeter and Persephone in epinician poetry define the relationship between Syracuse and the rest of Sicily under the rule of the Deinomenid tyrants. A final section argues that in contrast to the goddesses who celebrate uniquely Syracusan and Deinomenid interests, the hero Herakles articulates a role for Syracuse and the West more generally in the maintenance of the order of the Olympians.

From Resolving Stasis to Ruling Sicily: A Reading of Herodotus 7.153-167 in an Epinician Context

When the Greek embassy visits Sicily to convince Gelon to support their cause against the Persian threat, Herodotus begins the Sicilian logos with the story of a man named Telines, an ancestor of the Deinomenid tyrants, Gelon and Hieron. This paper first argues that by resolving the stasis in Gela and securing the civic priesthood of the chthonic goddesses for his descendants Telines prefigures Gelon’s rise to power as tyrant in Sicily. Next, it demonstrates that kingship and the priesthood of Demeter and Persephone are closely linked in Deinomenid ideology in epinician poetry, which provides a crucial backdrop for Herodotus’ portrayal of Gelon. Finally, the paper examines subtle references to the cult of Demeter and Persephone in Herodotus’ account and proposes that Herodotus’ descriptions of the Deinomenids offer a cautionary tale in support of practices that uphold the boundaries between inherited priesthoods and political power in fifth-century Athens.

The Wanderer’s Descent

Chapter 4 outlines how a descent to the underworld can symbolize experiences of diasporic populations, including refugees, enslaved peoples, exiles, and immigrants. An African-American man in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon experiences an Odyssean Nekyia, and connects with his family’s past. Amy Bloom’s Away makes parallels between the story of a Jewish refugee to America and the myth of Demeter and Persephone. Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet features Orpheus as a rock star whose descent is structured as a passage from India to America. Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder refers to the Orpheus story to address issues of deracination, but also suggests deeper intertexts that invite a critique of corporate plundering of the Amazon. With deliberate citations of ancient texts, these authors exploit the dialectic between home and the underworld to explore issues of diaspora, immigration, exile, assimilation, and nostalgia.

Revisiting Demeter and Persephone Paper A - Revisiting Demeter: towards reconceptualising maternal subjectivity and erotics

These conjoint papers discuss critically Nancy Chodorow’s understanding of mother–daughter separation as an important milestone in psychic development, as well as subsequent psychoanalytic work on female and maternal subjectivity through revisiting the myth of Demeter and Persephone. In Paper A, we are looking at the figure of Demeter. Our reading of Demeter in the myth questions the usual interpretations of this maternal figure particularly those from a psychoanalytic perspective, drawing the conclusion that Demeter, according to the myth, is the silent container for her child, the mother with no voice or subjectivity, or desire, she is the one who is to be left behind. Through a clinical vignette, we illustrate how in one clinical context, a mother and daughter relationship was perceived and “interpreted”, leading to the mother being seen as the problem, and cause of her daughter’s difficulties. The BBC film, The Mother, received many negative comments and even condemnation for its portrayal of a mother and grandmother as still sexually active, and wishing to be the subject of another’s desire. We suggest that the film illustrated some of our most uncomfortable and complex questions about the mother and the maternal. We conclude by looking at the film and the questions and fears it raises about female sexuality, desire, and ageing when applied to the “older” woman–mother.

Revisiting Demeter and Persephone Paper B - Revisiting Persephone: towards reconceptualising female subjectivity and erotics

In Paper B, we focus on the figure of Persephone in the myth, as the daughter, but also, as “the silent object of desire” of male imagination. We question whether Persephone’s forceful abduction is a representation of the emergence of female sexuality, as it has often been argued within psychoanalysis (Chodorow, 2012), or in fact, a symbolic representation of female subordination and objectification. We discuss a clinical vignette illustrating how a mother who is unable to face up to her own and her daughter’s vulnerability, unlike Demeter, can result in a daughter who is unable to protect herself from violation, and who cannot find her way up from the underworld so to speak. We then discuss the film, The Handmaiden, where the question of mother–daughter separation is a central theme. We argue that a strong mother–daughter bond is in fact central to the ability of women to find a healthy place for sexual desire and a close relationship in adult life, and that the nature of the mother–daughter bond is such that both mother and daughter seek out each other’s love and care throughout the lifespan.

Demeter’s Lamentation and Baubo’s Mockery

The chapter serves as an interlude between two comparative chapters on wedding lamentation and wedding mockery. It presents an analysis of the myth of Demeter and Persephone, exploring the function of lamentation and mockery as responses to the marriage event in an epic tale that recounts the abduction-marriage of Persephone by Hades and Demeter’s search for her abducted daughter. The chapter argues that lamentation and mockery are common responses, by the disempowered, to the simultaneous destruction and creation of social bonds and forms of community that occur during marriage.

ARISTOCRAT?, AMAZON?, OR PRIESTESS? (Some Remarks on the Status of Women in Greco-Scythian Communities)

In the year 2000, a joint expedition from the Archaeological Museum in Odessa and the Institute of Archaeology of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków conducted excavations in a Greco-Scythian necropolis at Koshary, near the Tiligul Estuary. In a circle of tombs surrounding a Scythian barrow (no. 55), grave no. 111 (dated to the late 4th century BC) stood out with its noticeably special status. In a large niche tomb meticulously carved in the bedrock, a young woman aged Infans II / Iuvenis (i. e. 14—15 years old) was buried on a bed made from reeds and grass and covered with felt. The body was placed to grave with the head to the east, and the burial stands out from other female graves in the Koshary necropolis by an impressive set of jewellery. The set was comprised of the following: silver earrings in the shapes of the heads of Demeter and Persephone, with bronze hooks for attachment, glass beads from a string on the neck, 6 bronze finger rings (4 on the left and 2 on the right hand), and 2 round bosses or appliques made of bronze on the chest. In addition, a tray containing a portion of meat and an iron knife provided with a bone handle was placed by the woman’s head. Immediately by the tray, a set of Greek vessels was placed, consisting of a thin-walled cup-skyphos, a saltcellar, and two small handmade bowls. Four bronze rings (possibly earrings) were also found near the vessels. A leather quiver with Scythian-type arrowheads, deposited to the right from the body, is a unique element. The deceased most likely had Greek origins (buried with the head to the east), but was connected with the family / lineage whose progenitor had been the man buried in the Scythian (in terms of burial orientation) barrow no. 55. Taking into account the over-standard furnishing, the size of the tomb, careful arrangement of the burial, and the monumental size of the stone barrier closing the niche, one can certainly regard the deceased woman as belonging to a group or class of high economic status and representing local elites. Her social role seems to be hinted at by the symbolism of Demeter and Persephone featuring on the ceremonial earrings, namely that of the longing mother and daughter lured by Hades into the underworld, whose cyclical, spring-summer meetings were supposed to bless the Earth with good harvest. The deposition of a «Scythian» quiver by the body was probably meant to additionally emphasise her prestige and social status, and her role as a guardian of her kinsmen’s fortunes. The newly forming, syncretic communities developing at the fringes of civilisations were undoubtedly distinguished by a very high degree of «openness» of their social structures towards «foreign» individuals. Of crucial importance were economic objectives determining the strategy of subsistence. For the Koshary community this was first of all cereal farming, as evidenced by a significant number of grain-storing structures (suggesting an industrial scale) discovered in a settlement adjoining the necropolis. This role of the Black Sea coast as a supplier of food (cereals in particular) for Greece allowed the region to be introduced into civilizational arteries of the Mediterranean world. This is why agricultural cults and Eleusinian Mysteries became important elements of spiritual life in the region. Thus, it comes as no surprise that individuals engaged in agricultural cults (associated with the ideology of immortality and afterlife) enjoyed high prestige in the analysed community. Perhaps, such person was the young women buried in grave no. 111, with the set of exquisite jewellery including impressive silver earrings with the heads of Demeter and Persephone.

Pan in the Alps

This chapter focuses on The Hedgehog, an autobiographical novella by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) that straddles the division between children’s and adult literature and exposes an adult’s stake in a child’s connection to antiquity. The plot concerns a young girl living in the Swiss Alps who has been taught by her mother to see the world through the lens of mythology. Thoughts shaped by this teaching allow her to fulfill her mother’s hopes for an end to class division (as when she identifies a woodcutter’s son with the god Pan) and, in the wake of World War I, to international conflict. At the same time, H.D. evokes the mythic paradigm of Demeter and Persephone to allow for a daughter’s independence of her mother, as well as the child reader’s independence of the adult author.