Poetry and mythology

[WICKES]

Can anyone recommend a 20th century poet, or any 20th century poems (particularly by Robert Graves or W H Auden), which use ancient mythology to overcome modern alienation and to provide a new sense of meaning/ connection? I'm not so interested in Yeats as (from the little I know of him) he seems to have tried to forge his own private set of symbols and myths.

[JCamilo]

Yeats used wordly symbols for his own interest (which is what all do while making it modern), Troy, Ireland, Helen, Maud Gone, etc.

Borges has a lot of mythological references on his work, but alienation is not his field and I do not know how good is his english translations. One of Fernando Pessoas identidies used a lot of classical references and with this he did re-readings of greece tales once or while too.

[JBI]

H. D.

[free]

Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth

[mortalterror]

You mean like Auden's The Shield of Achilles? That's my favorite poem of his and is exactly what you are asking for. I haven't read H.D.'s work but I'm assuming that JBI might be thinking of Helen in Egypt? Not quite as precise, but you might also want to look into A.E. Housman's The Oracle or Robert Penn Warren's Two Pieces After Suetonius. You also might want to look into Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red.

[JBI]

You mean like Auden's The Shield of Achilles? That's my favorite poem of his and is exactly what you are asking for. I haven't read H.D.'s work but I'm assuming that JBI might be thinking of Helen in Egypt? Not quite as precise, but you might also want to look into A.E. Housman's The Oracle or Robert Penn Warren's Two Pieces After Suetonius. You also might want to look into Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red.

Not quite sure what I had in mind, it was years ago, though much of her work was rewriting of Greek classics.

As for mythology and literature, I think everyone noticed that Love in Elizabethan literature is capitalized? Well, there is a specific reason - love in considered as the god Eros (Cupid) and not as an abstract emotion. That just shows how deeply rooted some mythological conventions are.

Still, as a theoretical framework, one wouldn't go amiss to take a look at the work of Northrop Frye again, or his students. One of them put out a nice collection a long time ago called The Boatman, or something, which is still deserving a read.

As for literature though, I doubt there are many major authors today who are not working with some sort of mythological intertext at the heart of their work. To do so is somewhat impossible, given the deeply rooted nature of some conventions.