Ashley Miles

Date of Award

2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Young, Jessica

Area of Concentration

English

Abstract

Throughout American literary history, African American authors have had a complex relationship with the Classics. This thesis looks to works written by African American women authors of the 20th century that rework, appropriate, and adapt the Greco-Roman myth of Demeter and Persephone. In “The Anniad” (1949), Gwendolyn Brooks uses epic narrative style while alluding to the myths to elevate the story of a young African American woman, Annie, as she navigates her first love and loss amidst instances of racialized and gendered alterity. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970) appropriates the myth to parallel the traumatic repetitions of Persephone’s never-ending return to Hades with the traumatic repetitions that occur within an impoverished African American family due to instances of racism, sexism, and violence. In Mother Love (1995), Rita Dove openly adapts the myth to posit that, instead of traumatic repetitions, Persephone’s liminal status offers opportunities for renewal and rebirth. All three of these authors experiment with genre, form, and mythic allusions to refute the dichotic categories of writing that is defined by outside critics as “White” or “Black,” collapsing Classical myth as well as traditional poetic forms into contemporary spaces and imaginations to create something new and pluralistic. As Classical mythology and the Western literary tradition are part of an American collective unconscious, it is only natural that these authors would utilize these themes and forms, and in comparatively analyzing these texts, one can see a gradual move toward texts that openly work to create a new canon in which marginalized stories and voices can exist alongside the “traditional.”

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