TY  - JOUR
T1  - Louise Glück’s “A Myth of Innocence” and the Myth of Persephone: A Structuralist Analysis through Lévi-Strauss
AU  - Taşdelen, Enes
PY  - 2025
DA  - June
Y2  - 2025
DO  - 10.26650/SJ.2025.45.1.0763
JF  - İstanbul University Journal of Sociology
PB  - İstanbul Üniversitesi
WT  - DergiPark
SN  - 2667-6931
SP  - 240
EP  - 261
VL  - 45
IS  - 1
LA  - en
AB  - This study aims to present a structuralist analysis of the Persephone myth in Louise Glück’s poem “A Myth of Innocence.” The analysis applies Claude Lévi-Strauss’s structuralist theory of myth, which explains myths as systems of meaning that operate through binary oppositions and structural mediation. Using key tools from the structuralist methodology, including the identification of binary oppositions, the use of mythemes, and the role of mediating elements, the study explores how Glück reconfigures the traditional myth to dramatise personal and collective transformation. The poem reframes Persephone’s descent into the underworld not simply as an act of abduction but as a symbolic negotiation between innocence and experience, passivity and agency, and surface and depth. Innocence is portrayed not as a static state but as a temporary phase, while knowledge and transformation emerge through internal and structural conflict. Formally, the poem mirrors this dynamic by simulating the logic of myth along a syntagmatic axis, particularly through the sequencing of thematic and narrative contrasts. Glück’s manipu lation of poetic structure, including enjambment, repetition, and rhyme variation, supports the underlying mythic logic. This study finds that Glück’s poem does not merely retell a classical narrative but exposes how myth continues to function as a system of signification in modern literary contexts. This analysis contributes to myth criticism and contemporary poetry studies by demonstrating the applicability of structuralist theory to modern poetic texts and by offering insight into how contemporary literature engages with, transforms, and simulates classical mythic structures for new expressive purposes.
KW  - Louise Glück
KW  - A Myth of Innocence
KW  - Persephone Myth
KW  - Claude Lévi-Strauss
KW  - Structuralism
KW  - Transformation
KW  - Binary Oppositions
KW  - Myth Analysis
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UR  - https://doi.org/10.26650/SJ.2025.45.1.0763
L1  - https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/5010473
ER  -