Pomegranates give you Wings!
Part 1 - Reflection: write a TEA paragraph or two in which you compare the way the two authors have presented the myth of Persephone.
Rita Dove and Eavan Boland both use the myth of Ceres and Persephone in their poems “Persephone, Falling” and “The Pomegranate” to express feelings about holding on and letting go through changing relationships as their daughters navigate the grey areas between childhood and womanhood. Mothers instinctively want to protect their daughters from real and imagined dangers. Dove fears “how easily the pit opens,” the pit that would allow her daughter to slip away into a dark, dangerous world. She desperately tries to instil a set of rules into her daughter’s way of being in the world to keep her safe, but due to the use of parentheses to contain this code, I suspect she acknowledges the forces pulling her daughter away from her are too strong. Although she holds the same fears as Dove and any other mother, Boland, consulting her own memories, also sees the gift that increased independence and experience brings, and finds joy in the special time before her daughter launches herself into the world.
Part 2 - Looking Ahead. You have read a little bit about the myth of Ceres and Persephone. Next week, you'll be looking at a poem based on the myth of Icarus. Google "Icarus" and find out something about the myth. Read W.H. Auden's poem, Musee des Beaux Arts (this link includes a summary and interpretation). What point is Auden making with his use of the myth of Icarus? Why do you think this particular myth is so popular, particularly as a way to describe male experience, in the same way that Ceres and Persephone says something about women's lives?
In “Musee des Beaux Arts,” Auden uses the myth of Icarus to illustrate how disconnected we are from people and events outside our immediate vicinity. We ignore tragedies and disasters except when they lend us a good story to tell and are front page worthy. Auden suggests that the suffering of others doesn’t matter much as long as we are safe and comfortable or too busy to care, like the ship in a hurry that passed on by after seeing “something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky.”
The myth of Icarus may be so popular because it tells of the time when a young man tries his 'wings' for the first time. His father offers guidance and direction, but Icarus alone experiences the freedom of flying where he wishes, and Icarus alone bears the consequences when his pride takes him too high and he comes crashing down.
Rita Dove and Eavan Boland both use the myth of Ceres and Persephone in their poems “Persephone, Falling” and “The Pomegranate” to express feelings about holding on and letting go through changing relationships as their daughters navigate the grey areas between childhood and womanhood. Mothers instinctively want to protect their daughters from real and imagined dangers. Dove fears “how easily the pit opens,” the pit that would allow her daughter to slip away into a dark, dangerous world. She desperately tries to instil a set of rules into her daughter’s way of being in the world to keep her safe, but due to the use of parentheses to contain this code, I suspect she acknowledges the forces pulling her daughter away from her are too strong. Although she holds the same fears as Dove and any other mother, Boland, consulting her own memories, also sees the gift that increased independence and experience brings, and finds joy in the special time before her daughter launches herself into the world.
Part 2 - Looking Ahead. You have read a little bit about the myth of Ceres and Persephone. Next week, you'll be looking at a poem based on the myth of Icarus. Google "Icarus" and find out something about the myth. Read W.H. Auden's poem, Musee des Beaux Arts (this link includes a summary and interpretation). What point is Auden making with his use of the myth of Icarus? Why do you think this particular myth is so popular, particularly as a way to describe male experience, in the same way that Ceres and Persephone says something about women's lives?
In “Musee des Beaux Arts,” Auden uses the myth of Icarus to illustrate how disconnected we are from people and events outside our immediate vicinity. We ignore tragedies and disasters except when they lend us a good story to tell and are front page worthy. Auden suggests that the suffering of others doesn’t matter much as long as we are safe and comfortable or too busy to care, like the ship in a hurry that passed on by after seeing “something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky.”
The myth of Icarus may be so popular because it tells of the time when a young man tries his 'wings' for the first time. His father offers guidance and direction, but Icarus alone experiences the freedom of flying where he wishes, and Icarus alone bears the consequences when his pride takes him too high and he comes crashing down.