Louise Glück’s “A Myth of Innocence” and the Myth of Persephone: A Structuralist Analysis through Lévi-Strauss

Yıl 2025, Cilt: 45 Sayı: 1, 240 - 261, 30.06.2025

Enes Taşdelen

https://doi.org/10.26650/SJ.2025.45.1.0763

Öz

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.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Louise Glück , A Myth of Innocence , Persephone Myth , Claude Lévi-Strauss , Structuralism , Transformation , Binary Oppositions , Myth Analysis

Kaynakça

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