Calling all Greek mythology geeks

[annathepiper]

And dr_pretentious, I am looking in your direction, but this is for any and all Greek mythology geeks on my Friends list.

Anybody got recommendations for good modern-day books on Greek mythos? I figure if I'm about to be writing a book spun off the Hades and Persephone myth, I damn well need to brush up. I know about Bulfinch's, of course, but I'm curious as to whether there have been any more recent texts that are considered worthwhile. Lay your thoughts on me, people!

Comments

[rosepurr.livejournal.com]

Joseph Campbell has a film series that talks a whole lot about Persephone. I don't know the name of it though. If you can find it, it's excellent. I watched it in a class some years ago.

[annathepiper]

Cool, thank you for the tip. :)

[rosepurr.livejournal.com]

I just remember it really made the myth come alive for me.

[annathepiper]

High praise indeed. And it's always been one of my favorites, that myth, so anything that delves into it is a plus for my purposes. :) It'll all be backstory for my actual plot, but I want to reground myself in it regardless.

[jessicac.livejournal.com]

Robert Graves: The Greek Myths 1 & 2
Walter Burkert: Greek Religion
The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World
HJ Rose: A Handbook of Greek Mythology, Including Its Extension to Rome

http://www.loggia.com/myth/persephone.html
http://web.uvic.ca/grs/bowman/myth/gods/persephone_t.html

[annathepiper]

Marvelous! Thank you very much. :)

[jessicac.livejournal.com]

Happy to help. Just whip out the book in th next six months. It sounds like exactly my kind of book, and I'll be in need of reading materials once baby is here and I'm spending a bunch of time sitting at home. ;)

[annathepiper]

Hope it'll still sound interesting to you once you hear the actual concept! :) Note that I am not actually retelling the myth, I'm doing a new story, set in modern times, for which the myth will be backstory.

(There's a first draft of a Backstory snippet posted over on my writing journal.)

[irysangel.livejournal.com]

You know, I always enjoyed D'Aulaire's Greek Myths when I was a kid. Dunno how well it holds up after time, but maaaan I love that book.

Let me think -- I read a few fictional Persephone books (CS Lewis wrote one, Roberta Gellis wrote one, and er, someone else wrote one called 'Love Underground') and they all SUCKED ASS. So stick to the classic stuff.

[annathepiper]

Thanks for chiming in! And that last title alone is enough to put me off. I mean, ugh. :)

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of a credentialed ignoramus. I knew if I made time to read books that weren't directly related to the dissertation, I would never finish. I gave a year of my life to four justifiably unpublished first drafts of novels H.D. wrote while she was in the middle of a long nervous breakdown, but my erudition is kind of spotty about anybody else's work.

I kept up a little bit with contemporary poetry, though, if that's useful to you. It seems every contemporary poet worth her salt is writing at least a few Persephone poems. I especially like Edward Hirsch's "Self-Portrait as Hades and Persephone." H.D. wrote a sequence of poems about Persephone, mostly from Demeter's point of view--it's pretty good, if you like modernist poetry. And you might want to look at Jane Ellen Harrison's work (late 19thC, early 20thC) on ancient Greek women's mysteries. She has some interesting stuff about Persephone in, I think, Proglegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Or it might be in Themis They're fascinating books, but long and hard going.

I can find more specifics on poetry, if that'll do. Otherwise, I'm just not your best source.

[annathepiper]

Not to worry, this will do me nicely. Thank you very much. :)

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

I did a lot of research a couple of years back for my own contemporary mythological fantasy novel _Agent of Change_ (which I still haven't sold :-(. I have several books and multiple links if you are interested. However, my research was focused in a different area, mainly concerned with Athene.

[annathepiper]

Titles of books will do me; the actual books themselves won't be useful to me since we're on opposites sides of the country, of course. ;)

Links would also be grand. I'm less concerned right now with the specifics of Hades and Persephone than I am just brushing up on Greek mythos in general. I need to reacquaint myself with a lot of the actions and general characteristics of the major gods who are likely to show up in my book.