Department or Program
English
Abstract
The female existence and experience is not singular in the way that is often perpetuated by the narratives of Greek mythology. In acknowledging that each female revisitation to a myth is an attempt to add a kind of humanity to narratives of female existence which have been made static by myth and tradition, one can begin to question whether myth has the power to tell a true story. My project investigates the feminist project in the poetry of Eavan Boland, Rita Dove, Louise Glück, and Margaret Atwood in revising the existing and well-known myths of Demeter, Persephone, and Circe. It will use these poets’ different treatments of each myth to investigate the nature of myth as a cultural touchstone, or as something that is culturally powerful enough to change the patriarchal narrative that exists within society surrounding these myths. Each poet, in choosing to interact with and revise myth, has a different project which ultimately seeks to imbue a vein of the “true” and fluid female experience into the base or image of the female that is established within the myths that they engage with. Through analysis of the differences and individuality of each interpretation, this project shows how feminist revisionist mythology plays a complicated role, having the potential to both advance and inhibit the representation of the wide variety of contemporary female experience by entering voluntarily into discourse with patriarchal narrative.
Level of Access
Open Access
First Advisor
Wright, Myra
Date of Graduation
5-2020
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Recommended Citation
Rozells, Madison, "“At the heart of legend”: Feminist Revisionist Mythology in Twentieth-Century Poetry" (2020). Honors Theses. 330.
https://scarab.bates.edu/honorstheses/330
Number of Pages
93
Open Access
Available to all.