Daughters and Mothers through the Reception of the Myth of Demeter and PersephonePsychoanalysis and Vulnerability in Rita Dove’s Mother Love and Louise Glück’s Averno

Resumo

Mythology provides us with a better understanding of the world around us. Thus, mythological stories keep finding their way into contemporary literature, and such is the case of the myth of Demeter and Persephone, which tells the story of Persephone’s abduction by Hades and Demeter’s mourning for the loss of her daughter. This myth addresses matters concerning, among other things, motherhood, death, life, and marriage. Many contemporary authors draw inspiration from mythological tales to create their writings; such is the case of the contemporary American authors Rita Dove and Louise Glück. Both Dove and Glück have incorporated mythological elements in multiple of their writings, and both have received the myth of Demeter and Persephone, exploring psychological aspects and addressing contemporary issues through their perception of this myth. As such, this thesis examines the reception of the myth of Demeter and Persephone in two books of poetry, Dove’s Mother Love (1995) and Glück’s Averno (2006), with a twofold objective: firstly, through close reading, to determine the impact of narcissism and trauma in Dove’s and Glück’s receptions of the Demeter/Persephone myth; secondly, to establish the role of vulnerability in these two contemporary appropriations of the myth. Thus, I shall apply a combination of Reception Studies, Psychoanalytic Studies, and Vulnerability Studies to achieve these aims. In sum, I will associate the ancient Homeric and Ovidian sources with the contemporary reception of the myth of Demeter and Persephone in Dove’s Mother Love and Glück’s Averno. Then, I will explore narcissism and trauma in these two books of poetry by applying Psychoanalytic Studies. After that, I will examine the concepts of gender, dependency, emotions, victimhood, resistance, and resilience associated with Vulnerability Studies. I will conclude with an overview of Dove’s and Glück’s reception of the myth of Demeter and Persephone as daughters and mothers.