The Persephone Myth in Young Adult Fiction
Subtitle: From Girl to Woman
By: Cristina Salcedo González
Edition: 1st ed.
Series: Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 2024
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 248
ISBN-13: 9781350401228
Subjects: Persephone (Greek deity); Women in literature; English Young adult fiction; History and criticism; Ancient religions & mythologies; Children's & teenage literature studies; Literary studies: classical;early & medieval
Description: <b>Investigating the widespread but understudied presence of the Persephone myth within 21st-century young adult literature, Cristina Salcedo González analyses six young adult novels which incorporate a reworking of this ancient Greek myth. </b>Through the identification of mythic themes ('mythemes') and patterns within these novels, González shows that these works evoke the female life cycle and develop current perceptions of the female maturational experience. As a result, González makes an important contribution in establishing the cultural significance of young adult literature in the world of classical reception. These novels, all written by women, also inflect or interpret the myth in ways influenced by their contemporary contexts, specifically the impact of the novels' target readership on the aspects of the myth that are either emphasised (e.g. Persephone's descent into the underworld; her existence there; and her re-ascent) or de-emphasised (e.g. the mourning and wanderings of Demeter).   This book makes original methodological contributions - through its innovative dual perspective of myth criticism and classical reception - to our understanding of the academically neglected genre of young adult literature and the reception of the myth of Persephone. As a result, González makes an important contribution in establishing the cultural significance of young adult literature in the world of classical reception.
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Table of contents: title: Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations    1. Introduction    PART I. THE REVALUATION OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY: THE MULTIPLE FACES OF PERSEPHONE FROM ANTIQUITY TO MODERNITY   2. Classical Persephone 3. From medieval Persephone to romantic Proserpine 4. Persephone in twentieth-century and nineteenth-century literature written in English   PART II. PERSEPHONE ADAPTED FOR YOUNG ADULT READERS: THE YOUNG WOMAN'S JOURNEY INTO ADULTHOOD    5. Persephone's revival in contemporary popular media and young adult culture  6. Mourning Persephone: adolescence and depression (<i>Dangerous Spaces</i> by Margaret Mahy) 7. Lost Persephone: adolescence and the inevitability of change (<i>The Water's Edge</i> by Louise Tondeur) 8. Sick Persephone: eating disorders and mental health (<i>Wintergirls </i>by Laurie Halse Anderson) 9. Abducted Persephone: violence against young women (<i>Bone Gap</i> by Laura Ruby) 10. Persephone and toxic love: adolescence and infernal relationships (<i>House of Women</i> by Lynn Freed) 11. Searching Persephone: identity formation, self-esteem and gender violence (<i>Psyche in a Dress</i> by Francesca Lia Block) 12. From girl to woman: female rites of passage and underworld journeys 13. Conclusions  Notes Bibliography Index Appendix: young adult rewritings of the Persephone myth in English literature from 1980 to 2023