Introduction to Mythology

To be a truly great poet (and to help you understand various writers throughout literary history) all writers should be familiar with the standard Gods, Goddesses, myths, legends and stories. There is a variety of reasons why a young writer would want to learn all this stuff. Here are a few reasons:

1. Parts of successful writing is connecting to their audience. We all have different life experiences; we all come from different cultures. Mythology levels our playing field when discussing UNIVERSAL ideas about what it means to be human.

2. Mythology is about what makes us human. These stories are referenced constantly in Western literature and culture. We see examples of mythological gods in our advertisement, television, media, music, art, science, and popular culture. By knowing the reference, you will understand more about what you're seeing.

3. Sophisticated poetry uses a technique called: ALLUSION. It is this literary device that we will mostly concern ourselves now. It deepens and enriches our work if we use it, allowing the poet to say more through metaphor (comparison) and figurative language.

To get started please take a look at these clips and jot down a few notes about the Greek gods in your journal:

Twelve Olympians
Olympian Gods

You should know the following names (Using your book or using the internet, find out who these characters/names are. Keep notes in your journal):
The Titans (Ocean, Gaia, Tethys, Hyperion, Mnemosyne, Themis, Iapetus, Atlas, Prometheus)
Cronus (Kronos)/Saturn
Zeus/Jupiter
Poseidon/Neptune
Hades/Pluto
Hestia/Vesta
Hera/Juno
Ares/Mars
Athena/Minerva
Artemis/Diana
Hephaestus/Vulcan
Apollo
Hermes/Mercury
Aphrodite/Venus
Lesser Gods: Eros/Cupid (very important to poets), Hebe, Iris, Dionysus/Bacchus, Demeter/Ceres, Pan,

The monsters: the Sileni, the Satyrs/fauns, the Dryads, the Nymphs, the Gorgons, the Graiae sisters, the Sirens, the harpies, the Minotaur, the Bacchae

Important people/gods/immortals to know:
Castor & Pollux, Leda, Heracles/Hercules, Persephone/Proserpine, Pentheus

Please read these poems:

Atlas by Lucille Clifton

i am used to the heft of it
sitting against my rib,
used to the ridges of forest,
used to the way my thumb
slips into the sea as i pull
it tight. something is sweet
in the thick odor of flesh
burning and sweating and bearing young.
i have learned to carry it
the way a poor man learns
to carry everything.

Leda by D.H. Lawrence

Come not with kisses
not with caresses
of hands and lips and murmurings;
come with a hiss of wings
and sea-touch tip of beak
and treading of wet, webbed, wave-working feet
into the marsh-soft belly.

The Death of Venus by Robert Creeley

I dreamt her sensual proportions
had suffered sea-change,

that she was a porpoise, a
sea-beast rising lucid from the mist.

The sound of waves killed speech
but there were gestures--

of my own, it was to call her closer,
of hers, she snorted and filled her lungs with water,

then sank, to the bottom,
and looking down, clear it was, like crystal,

there I saw her.

Endymion by Thomas Kinsella

At first there was nothing. Then a closed space.
Such light as there was showed him sleeping.
I stole nearer and bent down; the light grew brighter,
and I saw it came from the interplay of our two beings.
It blazed in silence as I kissed his eyelids.
I straightened up and it faded, from his pallor
and the ruddy walls with their fleshy thickenings
--great raw wings, curled--a huge owlet-stare--
as a single drop echoed in the depths.

Pentheus by George Seferis

Sleep filled him with dreams of fruit and leaves;
wakefulness kept him from picking even a mulberry.
And the two together divided his limbs among the Bacchae.

The Centaur by Theodore Roethke

The Centaur does not need a Horse;
He's part of one, as a matter of course.
'Twixt animal and man divided,
His sex-life never is one-sided.
He does what Doves and Sparrows do--
What else he does is up to you.

Now, try your own. Pick a god/goddess. Learn about them in your mythology book or from your notes. Identify for yourself what the god/goddess, being, etc. represents. This may be used as your theme. For Example: Zeus represents LAW. So write a poem about RULES or LAW or GOVERNING. You can do this backwards as well. Think about the theme or human condition you want to write about and match it with an equivalent god/goddess: For example: instead of LOVE, choose APHRODITE or EROS.

Write a short lyrical or narrative poem where you write TO the god/goddess, or FROM their POV, or to someone else ABOUT the god/goddess, etc.

Work on a draft of this poem in class today.