Myth-Folklore 2019

For this week's readings, I chose Ovid's Metamorphoses which includes multiple tales involving the Greek/Roman gods and goddesses. My favorite story out of the seven included in Part A was the story of Phaethon and the Su n from Ovid's Metamorphoses , translated by Tony Kline (2000). Phaethon is the son of the sun god Phoebus. He asks his father to prove his parentage by granting his son one wish. The god grants Phaethon a wish and the boy asks to be allowed to drive him father's chariot which carries the sun across the sky each day. Phoebus reluctantly agrees, seeing the danger in his son's request. Sure enough, Phaethon is unable to control the horses and lights heaven and earth on fire. Jupiter is forced to kill the boy with a lightning bolt in order to save the earth. Phoebus mourns his son, as does the boy's mother and three sisters. His sisters all turn into poplar trees as they mourn their brother. I think it would be interesting to rewrite this stor...

For this post, I chose to write on Deborah Maue's Giving Creative Feedback -- A Guide for Those Who Aren't Creative and Youki Terada's A Troubling Side Effect of Praise . I found Maue's article very helpful for evaluating the creative work of others while being a rather uncreative person myself. I am not creative at all and so I sometimes struggle with evaluating other people's work and creativity, either because I simply do not understand why they went a certain route or because I feel like I have insufficient creativity myself to judge others' creative work. This is especially true when it comes to writing. I myself am not a great creative writer so I have problems with evaluating other people's writing, which I can already tell I might struggle with in this class as we do this a lot in the comments assignment each week. I am getting better at giving helpful feedback but the steps Maue lays out for evaluating creative work are helpful as they help one to ...

The topic I have chosen for my final project is  Tigers The stories I am most interested in are The Brahmin Girl Who Married a Tiger , The Hungry Tigress , The Cat and the Tiger , and The Tiger of Chao-Cheng . In The Brahmin Girl Who Married a Tiger, an Indian tale,  a shape-shifting tiger changes into the form of a beautiful brahmin boy and wins the heart of a brahmin girl. The tiger eventually shows the girl his true form once they are married and on their way to his home in the woods. She is frightened but has a son with him, which turns out to also be a tiger. She uses a crow to send a message to her brothers who come to rescue her, tricking the tiger into being scared of them by using an ant, donkey, tree, and tub to convince the beast that they are huge, dangerous creatures. After the tiger runs off, afraid, the girl kills her tiger son and cooks it to give to her brothers and returns home with them. The tiger realizes her deceit and is distraught upon finding his so...

Throughout human history, war has plagued mankind and resulted in the loss of countless lives. One such war, fought not terribly long ago, ended only after great bloodshed and sorrow. One side emerged victorious after six years of fighting, ruling over its vanquished enemy and absorbing its lands and people. As tends to happen after wars, books upon books were published praising the efforts of the winning nation's soldiers while lambasting the defeated. As the saying goes, history is written by the victorious. One day, several years after the war had ended, two scholars met to discuss a recent publication about the war. One of the scholars was from the conquering nation, a young man who had escaped fighting in the war and had continued his studies as it raged on. The other was an elderly scholar from the conquered nation who had seen his own country win and lose several wars in his long lifetime, this last being the final event that brought his nation to its knees. He and his c...

If I choose to do my story over this part of the week's readings, I will do my story over the nature and inanimate objects section. The Tree and the Reed  in  The Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs (1894). In this fable, a tree asks a reed why it does not grow its roots deep into the ground and grow up as tall as the tree. The reed says that is may not be a magnificent plant but that it is content and safe the way it is, to which the tree scoffs, claiming that no one would mess with it due to its large size. Yet a storm rips the tree up and destroys it while the reed is able to come back after the storm passes. ( If I were to retell this fable, I would have two characters who are friends. One becomes wealthy in a business that involves quick cash but has high turn over. The other works at a boring but stable job with no turn over. The rich friend asks the poorer friend why he does not enter the more profitable field, to which the poorer friend says he is safe and content wit...

If I choose to do my story over this part of this week's readings, I will probably choose to do it over some of the lion fables as these are my favorites. The Lion's Share in The Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs (1894). In this fable, the lion works with a fox and jackal to kill a stag. When they are all dividing up the meat, the lion claims all parts for himself for various reasons, one of which is that the others will not dare to challenge him over it. The jackal and fox are forced to let him have it, but note that the lion had no problem sharing the labor but did not want to share the rewards of the labor. ( If I choose to do this story, I could place the story in modern times and have it involve various world leaders who fight a war as allies but after the war is won, one of them-the leader from the strongest nation-takes all of the territory and plunder and refuses to let the other nations reap any of the rewards of war. ) The Lion and the Statue  in  The Fables o...

The story I chose to read for extra credit was Part A of Cupid and Psyche  from The Golden Ass by Apuleius, translated into English by Tony Kline. The story begins with a young girl being captured on her wedding day. Her wails annoy an old woman who threatens to have the men who kidnapped the woman burn her alive if she continues wailing. The girl tells her sad story and her fears that her betrothed will be killed by the kidnappers,  as she saw in a dream, to which the old woman tells her not to worry, that dreams occurring in the daytime do not come true. ( Perhaps here I could add some details about the old woman or the curious narrator? This story might also be fun to do in a modern setting. ) The old woman then tells her the story of Cupid and Psyche. Psyche, a beautiful princess, is worshipped by people for her beauty, arosing the jealousy of Venus. Venus orders her son, Cupid, to make Psyche fall in love with a horrendously ugly, poor, and sick man. An oracle at Apol...