Week Three Reading Notes Part A - Cupid and Psyche

Source story: "Cupid and Psyche" from Apuleis's book The Golden Ass (translated by Tony Kline)

• "The Captive Woman"
• In this first story we are introduced to the main character of the book - Lucius - who has been turned into a donkey. He is being used as pack animal by a gang of robbers, and so he happens to witness them returning from an attempted night of thievery with only a captive noblewoman for their spoils, who they plan to hold ransom. She thinks to kill herself, but the old woman with the gang of robbers threatens to see her roasted alive if she doesn't settle down.
  
• "Her Dream"
• The captive woman explains to the old woman that she was kidnapped on her wedding day, and that she has just had a dream of the robbers killing her husband-to-be. She is greatly distressed, so the old woman offers to comfort her with a story.
  
• "Psyche's Beauty"
• We learn about the legend of Psyche, a princess so beautiful that the people began to worship her as they did Venus. Venus is, of course, deeply angered by the idea that a mere mortal woman could usurp some of her praises and glory, and so she calls her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with a miserable, wretched man. She then bestows a very disturbing kiss on her son and walks off onto the ocean, with all the ocean-dwellers following along and singing her praises.
• "Oracle of Apollo"
• Unfortunately for Psyche, she is admired by people the world over, but has no suitors, as people view her more as a work of art than as a marriageable princess. So her father goes to an oracle, who tells him she must go to a marriage ceremony of death, essentially. Her parents resist, but she tells them it is for the best, rather than having her go on living in sadness at being alone. So they take her to a rocky crag and leave her out in a red wedding veil to await her supposed husband. After all the other people leave her there alone, she is lifted up by a gentle breeze and placed on a soft bed of grass.
• "Magical Palace"
• Psyche awakes outside a glowing magical palace, in which she finds treasures of all kinds. Invisible servants explain to her that this all belongs to her, and that she may sleep in her room and bathe. She also sits down to eat a "sumptuous" meal, served again by invisible servants and followed by music by invisible musicians.
• "Mysterious Husband"
• Psyche is visited night after night by her husband, who has marital relations with her but never lets her see who he is. He warns her that her family grieves for her and that her sisters might soon come to try to see her, but that she shouldn't look at them or talk to them or she'll make him very sad. But of course she is sad, so he agrees to let her speak with her sisters as long as she doesn't take any advice from them about trying to figure out who he is. She then professes her love for him and he departs.
• "The Jealousy of Psyche's Sisters"
• Psyche's sisters do indeed come to visit her, and Zephyr (the wind which brought Psyche to her palace before) brings them to her palace. They are overjoyed to see her at first, but when they leave with gifts of gold and jewelry, they are overcome by jealousy that she should be so rich and have a god for a husband. So they determine to devise a plan to have her cast down from her castle.
• "Psyche's Husband Warns Her"
• Once again, Psyche's mysterious husband warns her that her sisters are bad news, but agrees to let her see them again so she won't be so sad and lonely. He also tells her that she is pregnant with his child, and that if she can keep her husband a secret, the child will be born a god; if she can't he will be born mortal. He warns her once more that if she ever tries to look at him, she will lose him forever. She reassures him that she will keep whatever secrets he asks her to keep.
• "Fears and Doubts"
• Psyche's sisters realize that she has been lying to them about what her husband looks like, so they determine that she must not know herself. So they convince her that he is actually an evil serpent (as was mentioned in the oracle's prophesy), and he will eat her as soon as she gives birth. They convince her to hide a lamp in her room and a blade under her pillow, and to look on him and kill him when he falls asleep.
• "Psyche's Husband Revealed"
• Psyche carries out her sisters' plan with the lamp, but stays her weapon when she realizes her husband is Cupid himself. She then accidentally pricks herself with his arrow, causing her to fall even more deeply in love with him. She admires him for awhile, but then the lamp drips oil on him and he awakes, and flies away. She holds onto his leg and is carried along, but eventually falls. He explains to her that he defied his mother and married her, shooting himself with his own arrow, then says he must punish her sisters, and he must leave her.
• "Psyche's Despair"
• Psyche attempts suicide in her despair, but the stream she throws herself into fears Cupid and keeps her from drowning. She has a brief encounter with the god Pan, who advises her to seek Cupid's favor if she is suffering from heartache. Then she goes and tricks each of her sisters into jumping to their deaths from the rocky crag from which Zephyr usually carries them on their way to see Psyche at her palace. She tricks them by telling them that her husband was really Cupid, but upon her betrayal, he declared he wished to marry her sister instead.
  

"Psyche Honoured by the People" - Giordano

Growth Mindset: "What's A-Motto With You?" - Timon, The Lion King

Original Photo: "Rendition of person in a spacesuit on Mars" 

Words added by me

For my motto, I chose "Fortune favors the bold" - I've heard my husband say this a few times, as well as a few other people, and I really like the idea behind it. Complacency and fear are so commonly the excuses people have for not doing the things they're passionate about, but imagine how little the human race would have accomplished if we'd all thought that way. Life requires a certain boldness and willingness to step outside our comfort zones to see what possibilities there are, so I'm going to aim to do this more frequently!

Famous Last Words: A Clean Home and a Peaceful Mind

This summer was a lovely one for me - we were living in Maryland for my husband, Alan's, internship at NASA, which left me with very little in the way of time commitments. I did babysit for the neighbors a few times a week for most of the summer, which kept me somewhat busy, but mostly I was able to take the first legitimate, relaxing break I've had in who knows how long. It really was fantastic - the couple we were staying with dropped by usually at least once a week to kidnap me and take me on some fun excursion, and I had time to read for fun for what feels like the first time in years!
Getting back here to Oklahoma was pretty hectic, though - our car broke down in Tennessee and we ended up stranded there with some friends of friends until my father-in-law could come save us, then we had to find a new vehicle in the two days we had left before classes and work started back up, so there was a lot of stress as the semester began. Since then we've been trying to find time to finish unpacking and finally feel like we've settled back into our lives here.
So, this week has finally been an accomplishment in that regard! Today, my husband and I spent half the day just unpacking, cleaning, and generally de-cluttering our home, and I feel like a new me. It's amazing how much of a difference it makes to live in a well-organized environment, isn't it? It got me thinking about some of the things we've been talking about in this class, as far as setting ourselves up for success. We've talked a little bit about being in a good mindset, and I was just marveling at how much I feel like my mindset changes when I feel comfortable and homey in the place where I spend most of my time. It does so much for me to be able to have a little haven to return to at the end of the day, where I can just feel peaceful, and a clean apartment is a huge part of that. I'm looking forward to a much more organized week!

Cleaning Bucket

Wikipedia Trail - From Chevrefoil to Containment Booms

For this week's Wikipedia Trail, I began my search with something related to one of my possible Storybook ideas:

I began with "Chevrefoil" - the title of a lai of Marie de France. Chevrefoil is an altered version of the French word "chevrefeuille," which translated to "goat leaf" (their term for honeysuckle). Like most of Marie de France's works, it focuses on an adulterous relationship - one between Tristan, a knight, and his uncle's wife, Iseult. Tristan and Iseult's love has been told in many stories, but Marie de France is unique in that she sets the story in South Wales, rather than Lyonesse.

This leads us to "Lyonesse." I had never heard of Lyonesse before, but it turns out that it is a land mentioned in many folktales, which is said to have "sunk beneath the waves" long ago. It is believed that the tales of Lyonesse demonstrate an amazing "survival of folk memory of the flooding of the Isles of Sicily and Mount Bay near Penzance." Its Cornish name, however, derives from the Cornish name for the Seven Stones Reef, which was the tragic site of the wreck of the Torrey Canyon.

This brings us to "SS Torrey Canyon." When the Torrey crashed in 1967, the oil tanker was the "largest vessel ever to be wrecked" up to that date. She spilled 110,000 tons of crude oil along the coast of poor Cornwall after striking Pollard's Rock on the Seven Stones Reef. In an effort to contain the spill, the oil was lit afire - multiple times, as the tides and waves continued to put it out.

This leads us to "Containment Boom." A containment boom is essentially a big floating barricade used to contain spills in water. The goal is not only to contain the spill to protect nearby areas from pollution, but also to keep it concentrated in hopes of recovering as much as possible with vacuums and skimmers.

Photo of a containment boom

Feedback Thoughts

This week I read two articles about how we deal with negative feedback:
"Why It's So Hard to Hear Negative Feedback" by Tim Herrera of the NY Times and "Make Good Art" - which is advice by Neil Gaiman on feedback in the creative world.

Reflecting on both of these calls me back to an art class I took my sophomore year at OU, which has been to this day one of my favorite classes with one of my favorite professors. And the reason for that might seem strange: I loved that class because my professor was harsh; if your work was garbage, he was going to let you know it (I mean that in a good, now-I-can-improve way). But he did humorously and tailored to each student. For students who were more likely to be hurt by hard negative feedback, he would be more gentle; for those who, as Herrera put it, "craved" that negative feedback, he would be quite open (and often very funny) in his delivery. Yet, if he ever sensed that a student was genuinely feeling that their art was hopeless, he would build them up and defend them with voracity.

Similarly, I have had a few writing classes here where the class setting has been cultivated into one where genuine negative feedback is offered by all the students in the class on each other's work. These have been my favorite writing classes here, too.

The reason these classes have been some of the best I've taken here is that I actually really enjoy receiving critical feedback on my work. Granted, the pleasure I take in receiving it can vary greatly depending on how it's delivered and in what setting, which again goes along with what Herrera has to say, but in the way these classes have been set up, getting this negative feedback from my peers and professors has been immensely helpful to me in improving my work. Here's a shocker: you can't fix what you don't know is broken. If not for my professor pointing out that I need to work on the composition of some of my art, how would I know that was an area I needed to improve? Of course, potentially I would have reached that realization on my own, but it certainly would have taken much longer and would have required quite a few frustrated drawing hitting the floor of my trash can. Or if my peers didn't point out an inconsistency in a story I wrote, how much longer would it have taken me to catch it, if I did at all?

All this said, you do also have to filter carefully through the critiques you receive. There have been times when I have received feedback on my writing that is either a matter of opinion - in which I, as the author, have to make the ultimate say - or I can say with certainty that the person offering me the feedback is plain wrong (like if someone tries to correct what they think is a grammatical issue, but I know is actually correct as is). Not all critical feedback is useful feedback, but some of it is. It's up to us to sort out the difference.

Ultimately, it's best not to sugarcoat things, but to be honest about what needs to be improved (and be open to hearing what you can improve).

"Sugar Free"PC Mark Morgan

Topic Brainstorm

Hello, everyone!

This post is a brainstorming post for my Storybook semester project. Below, I will list four topics that I am interested in using for this project:

1. The lais of Marie de France. Since I am a French major, it should come as no surprise to you that I have some familiarity with Marie de France. For those of you who don't know her work (which, reasonably, is most of you), she is a twelfth century poet from (you guessed it) France. She wrote in the form of what she called "lais," which are essentially fairy tales told in lyrical form. All in all, she wrote twelve lais, several of which I had the opportunity to read in my medieval French literature class. I would be especially interested in retelling some of these stories from the point of view of some of the side characters, or perhaps in altering the endings a bit. The stories are quite interesting, but some of the morality-related themes in them are so far from what is valued today, so I think it could be fun to address that through retelling. For example, ten of the twelve lais include adultery, and usually it is portrayed as a good thing in these stories. Obviously cheating on your spouse is not encouraged today, nor was it at that time in most of world literature, so it might be interesting to tackle that topic and see how the stories are changed if today's value system is imposed on them.
   If I choose this as my topic, I will likely find an English translation online of the specific lais I'm planning to include, but for now here is a collection of all twelve in their original Old French.

   

   Image of Marie de France from an illuminated manuscript

   
   
   
   
2. Sea monsters. To be honest, I have very little background when it comes to mythology and folklore about sea monsters, but I'd be excited to learn more about it! Despite my Midwestern heritage, I have always been just absolutely fascinated by the ocean and all its mysteries. It's simultaneously terribly intriguing and honestly quite terrifying to me, knowing just how little we know about the dark depths and what dwells there. I read online recently about a living shark that was discovered a few years back that is believed to be between 272-512 years old! That's older than our country! Plus, it's so interesting to hear about sea monster-related myths and consider what ocean-lurkers could have been behind their origins (for example, the theory that stories of mermaids came from seals/walruses/manatees, or that the kraken could have been a giant squid or eel of some sort). So I think it'd be really fun to do retellings of some of the old sea monster stories, but taking into account the (still very limited) knowledge of the sea that we have today. Here is a link to some sea monster stories included in the Untextbook.
3. Food. I saw this in the list of topic ideas and was immediately reminded of the book Like Water for Chocolate. For anyone who hasn't read it, it is a magical realism book told from the perspective of a Hispanic woman whose emotions pour into the food she makes and have wild effects on the people who eat it. I think it could be really interesting to incorporate that idea with foods of other cultures, or potentially to take myths that already include eating some kind of food and re-imagine them through that lens. For example, in this story about three sons and a king, one son claims to be a connoisseur of food, so the father sets rice before him and bids him eat. The son says no, because the rice smells to him of burning corpses, and it turns out that the rice was grown in a field near a village crematorium. If emotions really could pervade food when it is prepared, then a field of food growing next to a funeral home would be potent indeed. Also, since I work as a baker, I have a personal interest in food and its preparation.
4. Norse Mythology. I know nothing about Norse mythology, save for what comes with the Thor/Avengers movies (which I'm sure is totally accurate), and a little bit from a very abridge version of Beowulf. So this would be an interesting topic for me because I would be learning everything from scratch, so new impressions could be made. I think what little I know of this subject is intriguing, and I've heard people say there are a lot of interesting stories here, so I'd be game to check it out. Here is a link to The Heroes of Asgard, which seems like it would be a pretty good source for me!

Week Two Story: The Birth of an Ivory Girl

I was born to the kiss of a man, the weight of his hands on my hips, the taste of his mouth on my lips. A strange beginning, to be sure, but assuredly more pleasant for all involved than the usual ways of birth. Under the caress of the hands that carved me, so lovingly and so long ago, I could feel the cold ivory of my body giving way to the warmth of living flesh; organs separated from the stony mass inside my torso, forming themselves into lungs, brain, heart. I breathed deeply, for the first time, the fresh mountain air and the scent of spring flowers, the musk of my maker, my lover. Pygmalion opened wide eyes.

"My ivory girl," he whispered, and a surprised smile lit up his face.

Pygmalion was simultaneously new to me - as was everything else - and somehow deeply familiar, as though he was etched into my skin and bones. And really, he was. Before my awakening, my dear husband had sought for himself a beautiful wife, a virtuous wife, and had come up empty. The other women around our rural home were haughty and proud, empty of compassion or grace, so he elected to live a celibate life. His choice left him virtuous but lonely, though, and so I came into existence (though not yet fully - I existed in form only, but my life was yet to come). He took up the tools of a sculptor and carved my body dutifully, delicately, from ivory. Even before I became alive, he treated me with all the affection and love a woman could hope to obtain from a man: he brought gifts and laid them at my feet; he clothed me with beautiful robes and jewelry, he laid my head upon the softest of pillows.

To the goddess of love, this was pleasing indeed. In fact, my Pygmalion was pleasing in the eyes of all the gods for his humbleness, his noble character. At the festival of Aphrodite, Pygmalion gave up his offering graciously, then asked quietly for the chance to love a woman like what he had made me to be. Aphrodite was moved by his integrity and chastity, and when he returned home and kissed the cold hardness of my lips, she granted that breath should fill me, and that I might become as real and living as any human who has walked the Earth.

Three days later, we were married at the temple of the goddess who gave us to each other, and I swear I caught a glimpse of her shimmering figure smiling down at us from the corner of my eye.

Now, the story could happily end here, and that would have been enough. But in her goodness, Aphrodite did not limit her breath to my lungs only. Since that day, whatever creature is produced with Pygmalion's sculpting tools shivers jubilantly to life at our touch. He often carves me beautiful flowers, sweet little birds, or soft rabbits as gifts.

Aphrodite has blessed us greatly. We bring offerings to her daily now, so thankful are we for her gift. And another gift has been graced us: though I also carry in my womb a son, this morning, we carved for ourselves a child. A beautiful little ivory girl.

Artus Quellinus I's "Sleeping Infant"

Author's Note:
This story is my own retelling of the story of "Pygmalion" from Ovid's Metamorphoses. I have added some to the original story; the most important change to note is the addition of Aphrodite granting Pygmalion the ability to bring more to life with his sculpting tools than simply his bride, who was the only statue to gain life in the original myth. Additionally, the original is told in third person, as most myths are, but here I have altered it to retell it from the perspective of the woman who is brought to life by Aphrodite. 

Bibliography. "Pygmalion" from Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000). Web source.

Week Two Reading Anthology - Reading Notes

I am taking notes on the story of Pygmalion, from Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline in 2000.

Notes:

• Begins with revealing to the reader the virtuousness of the protagonist (all the women he met were full of "wickedness," so he chose a life of loneliness rather than marriage to someone unworthy). This is important, because it clues the reader in to what type of person he is, and directs them to anticipate his virtuous nature being rewarded (which does occur at the end).
• The next bit is fairly weird, but it's the ancient Greeks, so what do you expect? We see Pygmalion, our protagonist, create an ideal partner for himself, as a measure to alleviate some of his loneliness while still rejecting the wickedness of the women around him. Again, the reader is meant to see in this some evidence of his virtue, bolstered by the description of the treatment he gives his "ivory girl" - even with an inanimate woman, he treats her with all the love, passion, and appreciation that a good man would bestow on his wife. He brings her all manner of gifts, he ensures her comfort with a soft pillow and bed, and he talks to her and gives her affection and compliments. The reader is, I think, supposed to take away something along the lines of "Wow, if this is how well he treats a woman made of ivory, imagine how well he'd treat a real woman! He deserves to have a wife worthy of his noble character." (Granted, if I met a dude in real life who was feeling up a statue, this would decidedly not be my first reaction, but I say again: it's the ancient Greeks, so what do you expect?)
• In the next section, the reader is shown one more facet of Pygmalion's virtue: his dedication to the gods. He goes to a festival for Venus/Aphrodite, and pays homage to her in the form of sacrifice. After his offering, he requests a bride like his "ivory girl."
• An important note: He makes his request "shyly." Now we see his humbleness in the face of the gods, marking him for us again as a man of virtue.
• Venus/Aphrodite is moved by his request *because he is favorable in the eyes of the gods*. This is the moment we've been directed to all along. The author presents Pygmalion to us as the epitome of virtue (for that time/culture, anyway), so we as readers are expecting this moment all along - in fact, we'd feel almost cheated if it unfolded differently.
• The ivory girl is made human as Pygmalion gropes her (gross, but okay.) They get married and live happily ever after with their son.
• An important note: Venus/Aphrodite attends the wedding - she is pleased with Pygmalion and wishes to see the product of her own benevolence.

Regnault's Pygmalion priant Venus d'animer sa statue

Week Two Reading Overview

Tentative Reading Schedule:

Choose from CLASSICAL and/or BIBLICAL units for Weeks 3 and 4.

Week 3: Cupid and Psyche

Week 4: Homer's Iliad

Choose from MIDDLE EASTERN and/or INDIAN units for Weeks 5 and 6.

Week 5: Tales of a Parrot

Week 6: Sindbad

Choose from ASIAN and/or AFRICAN units for Weeks 7 and 9. [Week 8 is review week.]

Week 7: Lang

Week 9: West Africa

Choose from NATIVE AMERICAN units for Weeks 10 and 11.

Week 10: Inuit

Week 11: Hiawatha

Choose from BRITISH and/or CELTIC units for Weeks 12 and 13.

Week 12: Celtic Tales

Week 13: More Celtic Tales

Choose from EUROPEAN units for Weeks 14 and 15.

Week 14: Kalevala

Week 15: La Fontaine

I am really looking forward to a lot of these readings, as mythology/folklore in general is quite interesting to me, so it's honestly difficult to pick out which of them are the most enticing to me. I am particularly looking forward to the Celtic Tales, as that is an area of folklore that I haven't had many encounters with, but I've always been really interested in Greek mythology as well, so the first couple of units will be exciting for me, too. Additionally, since I am a French major, Week 15's study of Jean de la Fontaine is of particular interest to me. Really, though, I could go on about why each of these is compelling to me in some way, so I suppose it's best to just leave it there.

If I were to add anything here, I would be interested in learning about what kind of lore is native to the islands of the Caribbean, specifically Haiti, as I have a vested interest there. However, since Haiti is comparatively a very young nation, I don't know the extent to which it has developed folklore, although I do know there is a very interesting blending of culture/religions/languages there due to the history surrounding their revolution. I imagine much of their lore is African-based, with trappings of French/Spanish culture, and then, of course, distinctly "Haitianized" to be unique to their culture; this is, of course, mostly conjecture.

Punch Magazine Political Cartoon based on La Fontaine's Fable "Le Loup et l'agneau"

A brief note about the image above: this is a political cartoon from the 1880's reflecting the desire of the French to subjugate Siam (now Thailand), and it is a play off of one of La Fontaine's fables which I happen to be familiar with - "The Wolf and the Lamb" - which deals with the idea of the strong and powerful oppressing the weak and vulnerable.