HANDOUT 

Module 2: Rise From the Underworld Shining Like Persephone 

 
SHORT READING LIST
Libraries are filled with books on the myths we explored today. The main ancient sources I
referred to are
The Homeric Hymn to Demeter ​(available in several translations online) from the 7th century
bce
Metamorphoses ​by Ovid, from just 2000 years ago. Ovid set his drama on (and below) the
island of Sicily which may encourage us to locate it in the landscapes of our current lives.
I have consulted more that 200 books by mythographers, anthropologists, psychologists,
priestesses and authors who have found the Persephone story coming alive in their lives.
Among my favorites:
Jane Ellen Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. First published more than a
century ago, this stunning work by a pioneer feminist scholar is still indispensable reading on
what was realy going on in ancient Greek religion.
Karl Kerenyi and C;G. Jung, ​Essays on a Science of Mythology: The Myth of the Divine Child
and the Mysteries of Eleusis ​melds rigorous scholarship and intuition. All of Kerenyi's works on
Greek mythology are excellent. I made particular use of his monograph on ​Ephesus​ for this
class.
Anne Baring and Jules Cashford, The Mythology of the Goddess,chapter 9. All of this splendid
work is relevant to this course.
Carol S, Pearson, ​Persephone Rising: Awakening the Heroine Within. ​I greatly admire how she
helps us bring the play of the archetypes in this story into our contemporary lives.
i talked about the votive plate from Locri in Calabria showing Persephone and Hades enthroned
together, and how in the Greek colony there she was adored as a Great Goddess with special
interest in fertility, marriage and childbearing.An excellent source on the cult of Persephone
here is Bonnie MacLachlan, “Kore as Nymph, not Daughter: Persephone in a Locrian Cave”
[Diotima website 2004]
https://web.archive.org/web/20150905150401/http://www.stoa.org/diotima/essays/fc04/MacLach
lan.html