Transformation of LIT 285

"I weep for Adonais -he is dead!
O, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,
And teach them thine own sorrow, say: "With me
Died Adonais; till the Future dares
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!" (Percy Bysshe Shelley)

This is the first paragraph of Adonais, a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley and thought appropriate as we come to the end of the semester. I saw this first paragraph as a metaphor for our mythology class.  Insert Mythhology Class or LIT 285 for Adonais and a eulogy for this class is formed.  Especially the words, "Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be an echo and a light unto eternity!"  This is how I see this class.  Many of us, including myself, were little versed in mythology and have been enlightened.  Sure, we may have heard of Zeus, Apollo, Aphrodite, Persephone, and Achilles--to name a few--but perhaps didn't know how dysfunctional the gods were--all that raping of mortals and incestuousness relationships and a separation, initiation, and transformation to mythology.

Did you know that Shelley wrote the poem for his friend John Keats?  Apparently so, according to one of the websites on Shelley. And isn't this atypical of myth?  You find a poem you can relate to and then the back story comes to the forefront to either shatter the myth you created in your head or enhances the idea.   Even the myth of Adonis reads so much like all the other myths of the Greek gods.  Myrrh sleeps with her father Theias and runs off afterwards into a forest, Aphrodite finds her and changes her into a tree.  The father strikes the tree and out pops Adonis.  Then Adonis has this fateful meeting with a boar and is killed at an early age.  Above all, his beauty is mourned.  Moral of story:  It is the origin of myrrh and of the rose--Adonis' blood grows into a rose. No wonder roses are so thorny--they originated out of incest!

It's been great to see the creativity amongst all the groups and the themes we chose.  Most prevalent is the phrase, "Myth is the precedent behind every action!"  Even the girl interviewed in the bar remember it!  From the marriage of Persephone and Hades, the funeral rites (you guys did a fantastic job with the ambience!), our narcisstic society through our celebration of celebrity, a mythology game, and myth in Bozeman.