The need to understand anything is a driving force in today’s world. This drive has caused discoveries and revelations in all fields. This need is also the reason that many feel that everything needs to mean something or have a greater context. Even mythology, has become a victim to analysis and deep interpretation.
By this I mean that many people have tried through the centuries to figure out from a literary standpoint if the myth of Demeter and Persephone has any true symbolism to help the readers, listeners, and viewers connect themselves with the myth in a larger context. For example, the most common interpretation of the myth is that the whole idea of the story was a way to explain the changing of the seasons.
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| http://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/imageswomen/papers/paolicchidemeter/graphics/PersnHade.jpg |
However, due to civil rights, and movements of all kinds, different standpoints have added another layer of meaning to this myth that may not have previously been there. For instance, the feminist movement has brought about many changes as well as new perspectives. From a feminist point of view, the myth is often read in a light that everything is against the happiness of Persephone and that due to gender role stereotypes; Persephone gets the short end of the stick. To elaborate, many feminists think it is insulting to read that Persephone was given to her Uncle by her Father without her consent. From reading the myth, this view does seem factual for Zeus, who is Persephone’s father; agreed to allow the marriage of Hades (Zeus’ brother) and Persephone to take place. Also, the symbolism of the pomegranate seeds that Persephone partakes just before leaving the underworld brings forth some tension. For it is believed that pomegranate seeds represent the idea of maturity. By association many have come to the notion that Persephone was raped or had some type of sexual event with Hades, thus moving her from the platform of child to woman. It is in this transformation, that most feminists do not appreciate for at the end of the tale, everyone compromises and accepts their new roles without a word. The acceptance of being a wife against consent and withheld from being with one’s mother seems to not move well within most feminists’ ideals. So clearly, from a feminist perspective, the myth is not pleasing.
Now in the case of Alfred Lord Tennyson, the myth means something completely different. Tennyson set forth with the idea to write about Demeter’s myth at the age of eighty. At this time in his life, Tennyson was fighting with the thought of his own mortality, and his worries about his family. Thanks to the format that he chose to pose the poem, the myth took on a new face as well as a new meaning.
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It is quite obvious that events from the original version are cut out in Tennyson’s poem. These selected scenes help to emphasize Demeter's and Persephone’s despair and affection for one another; thus bringing in the family affection aspect. It is hypothesized that Tennyson implied that Demeter and Persephone are personifications of harvest. To be more exact, Demeter is a fully-grown ear of corn compared to her child, Persephone, who embodies the form a seed. So as the poem progresses, Persephone becomes a ripe ear of corn due to her forcibly receiving a husband while Demeter slowly wilts away into decay. This symbolism is also made to play on the idea of separation. As Tennyson was getting older he worried about the separation from his family upon death, which is similar to Demeter and Persephone’s case, which both are distraught at the separation from one another.
Yet, it has been claimed that Tennyson had included a sense of regeneration. This is through the changing of seasons imagery. Connecting the changes with Demeter’s emotions allows one to interpret this regeneration as one of the mind as well as an earthly regeneration. It can be seen in the transition of despair in the characters, which is often concluded to mean darkness or hell to happiness upon reuniting meaning hope or heaven. Therefore, Tennyson’s version is highly directed at family and gives a sort of hopeful, and warm feeling to a sad story.
In another light, numerous scholars have interpreted the myth to display Persephone as an almost tragic hero. It is thought that in Persephone’s terrible circumstances, she gains much power. In her transformation from child to woman, she gains the title of ‘Queen of the Underworld’. So she lives in Tartarus, which is the level of the underworld in which evildoers and despicable individuals reside. Nevertheless, Persephone as the queen of the Underworld greets each soul and welcomes each one to one’s new home. So in a new way, the myth has a triumphant end rather than a dull compromise.
Still, it is important to keep in mind that the myth of Demeter and Persephone has been retold, rewritten, and retranslated countless times to the point that has become difficult to say where any of these interpretations came from, or for that matter, are concrete for no one is truly sure who the real author of the myth is or when it was officially written. So even the interpretation of what the gods look like is up for debate. In the words of Thomas Allen, “ Critics…have been so much occupied in dissecting the hymn into parts that they appear to have had no time to appreciate its excellence as a whole.”
This is an example of how the History Channel interprets how Persephone and Hades look.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UseWGTFkyfE
Works Cited:
Allen, Thomas W., and E. E. Sikes. "Hymn to Demeter." Commentary of the Homeric Hymns.
Web. 2 Dec. 2011.<http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3At
text%3Dcomm%3Apoem%3D2>.
Stange, G. R. "Tennyson's Mythology A Study of Demeter and Persephone." ELH 21.1
(1954): 67-80. JSTOR. Web. 27 Nov. 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stab-
le/2871934?seq=6>.
Strong, Laura. "The Myth of Persephone - Greek Goddess of the Underworld." Mythic Arts |
Laura Strong, PhD. 2000. Web. 02 Dec. 2011. <http://www.mythicarts.com/wri-
ting/Persephone.html>.
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