The Myth of Persephone in Girls' Fantasy Literature

Holly Blackford

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136644276
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

In this book, Blackford historicizes the appeal of the Persephone myth in the nineteenth century and traces figurations of Persephone, Demeter, and Hades throughout girls' literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She illuminates developmental patterns and anxieties in E. T. A. Hoffmann's Nutcracker and Mouse King, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, J. M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy, Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, E. B. White's Charlotte's Web, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, and Neil Gaiman's Coraline. The story of the young goddess's separation from her mother and abduction into the underworld is, at root, an expression of ambivalence about female development, expressed in the various Neverlands through which female protagonists cycle and negotiate a partial return to earth. The myth conveys the role of female development in the perpetuation and renewal of humankind, coordinating natural and cultural orders through a hieros gamos (fertility coupling) rite. Meanwhile, popular novels such as Twilight and Coraline are paradoxically fresh because they recycle goddesses from myths as old as the seasons. With this book, Blackford offers a consideration of how literature for the young squares with broader canons, how classics flexibly and uniquely speak through novels that enjoy broad appeal, and how female traditions are embedded in novels by both men and women.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Series Foreword
• Introduction Reaching for the Narcissus: Byronic Boys, Toys, and the Plight of Persephone
• Chapter 1: Unearthing the Child Underworld: The History of Persephone and Developmental Psychology
• Chapter 2: Toying with Persephone: Herr Drosselmeier and Marie in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Nutcracker and Mouse King (1816)
• Chapter 3: Jo’s Sensational Boy and the Gift of Amy’s Soul in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868–1869)
• Chapter 4: Lost Girls, Underworld Queens in J. M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy (1911) and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847)
• Chapter 5: Eleusinian Mysteries in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden (1911)
• Chapter 6: The Byronic Woman: E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web (1952)
• Chapter 7: The Riddle of Féminine Écriture in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998)
• Chapter 8: Divorce and Other Mothers: Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight (2005) and Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (2002)
• Works Cited
• Index