Please help me with a summer assignment

[CoffeeIncluded]

One part of my English summer assignment is to find a poem written before 1950 that contains an extended allusion to either a Greek, Roman, or Norse myth (Preferably Greek or Roman). However, this poem cannot be a retelling of the myth, but an illusion.

I'll be honest. I don't read poetry. I don't have anything that would fit these requirements on hand. Could anybody here please help me out? Thanks.

[Kneenibble]

O Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicaean barks of yore
That o'er perfumed seas
The weary wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.


I forget the name and the rest of the text, but it's by EA Poe and there's several classical allusions. Just a moment, I'll check my Poe anthology.

[Eadin]

Maybe A Midsummer Night's dream?
It's based the Norse fairy myths...
Or does it have to be a specific tale?

[Quincunx]

That's "Helen", easy enough. It's also quite short.

It's an allusion, too, not an illusion--I was about to send you to symbolist poets and that is just harsh to inflict upon someone who doesn't indulge in poetry.

[CoffeeIncluded]

O Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicaean barks of yore
That o'er perfumed seas
The weary wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.


I forget the name and the rest of the text, but it's by EA Poe and there's several classical allusions. Just a moment, I'll check my Poe anthology.

Thanks. If there are any others, that would be good too (Don't want to limit myself to just one!)


Maybe A Midsummer Night's dream?
It's based the Norse fairy myths...
Or does it have to be a specific tale?

Unfortunately, it's got to be a poem. (For example, a poem containing an illusion of Theseus's adventures)

Thanks for all your help, everyone.

[Eadin]

What about this one :
"Leda and the Swan"
by William Butler Yeats

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.

Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?


Or is it too much retelling?

[Kneenibble]

@^ *shivers with pleasure*


That's "Helen", easy enough. It's also quite short.

It's an allusion, too, not an illusion--I was about to send you to symbolist poets and that is just harsh to inflict upon someone who doesn't indulge in poetry.
A simple error like that almost warrants the punishment though, doesn't it? :D

Alright, as the Lady says, it's To Helen:

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!*

For a truly epic oration of this poem, please see Tom Hanks' character in "The Ladykillers."

[CoffeeIncluded]

These look good, but are you sure they're not retellings?

EDIT: No, I don't think Leda and the Swan would work, sorry.

EDIT EDIT: To Helen looks good! Thanks!

[Eadin]

Leda and the swan is kinda just the sex scene...
It doesn't tell the whole myth...
It's basicly porn...
Shame... WB Yeats is awesome :smalltongue:

[CoffeeIncluded]

Leda and the swan is kinda just the sex scene...
It doesn't tell the whole myth...
It's basicly porn...

Ah. No. No, that would not work. As daring as I am in English class, I'm not doing that.

To Helen looks good though! Thanks!

[CurlyKitGirl]

Paradise Lost - there's a fleetworth of Classical allusions to it. A good one is where Satan falls from Heaven to Hell, the entire description of that uses Greek mythology and philosophy and astronomy if I'm not too mistaken.

Or if that fails: Aurora Leigh by ELizabeth Barreet Browning.
It more weaves and references the Classical elements into the narrative to better show the nuances of the story.
On the downside I found it quite dull and a hard slog. ANd it's only some three hundred and sixty pages.

Or there's a poem by Iohn Keats about the Cupid and Psyche legend. I can't recall it's name, it's probably called Ode to Psyche knowing him. It doesn't retell the story, but alludes to what happened in it, so that would fit.
Or Lamia by Keats. Rife with Classical imagery and allusions

[CoffeeIncluded]

Thanks, but no thanks. It's got to be a poem, and I've got to hand in a copy of the poem to the teacher. I don't think she'd appreciate my putting a copy of Paradise Lost on her desk.

[Eadin]

Can it be about a Christian 'Myth'
My english fiction book contains a lot of poems about the Virgin Mary, for example.
Also got one about a Celtic myth, if that's okay too

[CoffeeIncluded]

Can it be about a Christian 'Myth'
My english fiction book contains a lot of poems about the Virgin Mary, for example.

No, they gave us a book of mythology, told us to keep a log of the myths, and find a poem based on the myths. The Helen one looks good though.

[Eadin]

Ok, good luck!

[CoffeeIncluded]

Ok, good luck!

Thanks. I'll be fine. I have a week to do this. I've done more in less time. :smalltongue:

[Platinum_Mongoose]

Shakespeare alludes to Homer and Ovid all the time.

[Commander McCoy]

All I have to do for my English summer assignment is read and take notes on The Stranger, by Albert Camus. Easy mode. Really glad I don't have to do anything with poetry...

[Pyrian]

I don't think she'd appreciate my putting a copy of Paradise Lost on her desk.Are you kidding? That would be friggin' awesome. :smallbiggrin:

[CoffeeIncluded]

Are you kidding? That would be friggin' awesome. :smallbiggrin:

With last years English teacher? Yes. Don't know about this one though. I don't know if I can get away with the same sort of stuff that I did last year yet.

[Quincunx]

@^ *shivers with pleasure*


A simple error like that almost warrants the punishment though, doesn't it? :D

Alright, as the Lady says, it's To Helen:

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!*

For a truly epic oration of this poem, please see Tom Hanks' character in "The Ladykillers."

. . .I'd go gay for you, but I don't think it would help. :smallcool:

[Dallas-Dakota]

Your babies would break minds by just speaking the english language.

[Marnath]

Your school gives summer homework? O.o
And people actually do it? Hmmm... Interesting.
I have a hard time imagining that enough people turn those in to be worth the effort of grading.

[Keld Denar]

Ewwww, school work that doesn't involve math or numbers? Count me out...

Blech!

[CurlyKitGirl]

With last years English teacher? Yes. Don't know about this one though. I don't know if I can get away with the same sort of stuff that I did last year yet.

That's a massive shame, I know my AS Eng Lit and Eng Lang teachers geeked out like TeH cRaZy when they saw me reading it in college (Britlander).

I'd say go for it, but if you don't it's no biggie.

[PJ the Epic]

That's a massive shame, I know my AS Eng Lit and Eng Lang teachers geeked out like TeH cRaZy when they saw me reading it in college (Britlander).

I'd say go for it, but if you don't it's no biggie.

While your at it, you should throw in a copy of Dante's Inferno. It has numerous refrences to the Greek underworld, but is placed in a Christian setting. :smallconfused:

[Lord Loss]

Your school gives summer homework? O.o
And people actually do it? Hmmm... Interesting.
I have a hard time imagining that enough people turn those in to be worth the effort of grading.

Mine does too. We need to write three book reports. Three! And then, (depending on the teacher) you do something with hem that varies from handing them in to be graded, writing a test with them to help you, writing a test without them to help you, or chucking them in a garbage bin.

[Marnath]

I remember the one solitary time a teacher tried to assign a book report over the summer here. Not one student turned it in, not even the kids who actually try at school.

[mucat]

Hi Coffee.

I agree, the Helen poem is a good one. Here's another you might like: The Garden of Proserpine by Algernon Charles Swinburne.

(Actually, I'm not sure that "like" is the right word for Swinburne's poems. It's more a matter of standing back and saying "Wow, I didn't realize it was medically possible to be this depressed and still continue breathing!" His basic message in this poem is "existence is utterly miserable, so the single greatest comfort in life is knowing there will be no afterlife when we die.")

Proserpine is the Roman name of the lady more commonly known by her Greek name, Persephone...so the poem is an allusion to the myth of the goddess of the seasons, who moves back and forth between Hades and the land of the living each year.

I always quote the second-to-last stanza of this one to my physics classes as a poet's take on the Second Law of Thermodynamics. :smalltongue:

So without further ado (and spoiled for length):
The Garden of Proserpine, by Algernon Charles Swinburne:


Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.

I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep,
Of what may came hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.

Here life has death for neighbour,
And far from eye or ear
Wan waves and wet winds labour,
Weak ships and spirits steer;
They drive adrift, and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,
And no such things grow here.

No growth of moor or coppice,
No heather-flower or vine
But bloomless buds of poppies,
Green grapes of Proserpine.
Pale beds of blowing rushes
Where no leaf blooms or blushes
Save this whereout she crushes
For dead men deadly wine.

Pale, without name or number,
In fruitless fields of corn,
They bow themselves and slumber
All night till light is born;
And like a soul belated,
In hell and heaven unmated,
By cloud and mist abated
Comes out of darkness, morn.

Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep for pains in hell;
Though one were fair as roses,
His beauty clouds and closes;
And well though love reposes,
In the end, it is not well.

Pale, beyond porch and portal,
Crowned with calm leaves, she stands
Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands;
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than love's who fears to greet her
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.

She waits for each and other,
She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,
The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her and follow
Where summer song rings hollow
And flowers are put to scorn.

There go the loves that wither,
The old loves with wearier wings;
And all dead years draw thither,
And all disastrous things;
Dead dreams of days forsaken,
Blind buds that snows have shaken,
Wild leaves that winds have taken,
Red strays of ruined springs.

We are not sure of sorrow,
And joy was never sure;
Today will die tomorrow;
Time stoops to no man's lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no man lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light;
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight;
Nor wintry nor vernal,
Nor days, nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.

[zeratul]

The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe contains a bunch of illusions to Roman mythology, and has the side bennefit of being totally awesome, so i'd recommend that one.

[Dr.Epic]

Not sure if this counts, but The Seafarer (http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=get&type=text&id=Sfr).