This may not be the version of the myth of Persephone that’s commonly known and taught. But it is the original, from before it was altered to scare Greek/Roman girls into submission. Persephone was a badass bitch.
Oh ffs, this is not the “original” version, it was made in the 70’s by someone who didn’t want to expose her daughter to the kidnapping/arranged marriage of the actual story. Just because something is “more feminist” doesn’t make it correct.
specifically it was written by Charlene Spretnak in her “Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths.”, publiched in 1978. it promotes itself as “the true original versions, stripped of patriarchal revisionism” with the idea that prehistoric greeks were pro-feminists and their religion originally revolved around all powerful female gods, before invasions of “patriarchal barbarians” (aka the ancient greek culture we know from history) took over.
the truth is that Ms. Spretnak is a rather extreme view feminist, and wrote the book in an effort to rewrite known history to fit her views, based almost entirely on nothing in terms of evidence. Indeed the book cites no evidence for any of the mythology sections, not even the sort of fragmentary bits archeology sometimes turns up, or even analysis of later versions of the myths to demonstrate evidence of older forms. they just appear whole cloth and their extreme divergence from the historically attested versions of the myths make it hard to imagine how such versions turned into the ones that came to us down through history.
Oh ffs, this is not the “original” version, it was made in the 70’s by someone who didn’t want to expose her daughter to the kidnapping/arranged marriage of the actual story. Just because something is “more feminist” doesn’t make it correct.
specifically it was written by Charlene Spretnak in her “Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths.”, publiched in 1978. it promotes itself as “the true original versions, stripped of patriarchal revisionism” with the idea that prehistoric greeks were pro-feminists and their religion originally revolved around all powerful female gods, before invasions of “patriarchal barbarians” (aka the ancient greek culture we know from history) took over.
the truth is that Ms. Spretnak is a rather extreme view feminist, and wrote the book in an effort to rewrite known history to fit her views, based almost entirely on nothing in terms of evidence. Indeed the book cites no evidence for any of the mythology sections, not even the sort of fragmentary bits archeology sometimes turns up, or even analysis of later versions of the myths to demonstrate evidence of older forms. they just appear whole cloth and their extreme divergence from the historically attested versions of the myths make it hard to imagine how such versions turned into the ones that came to us down through history.