Poetic Studies Lesson 2: Repeat Offenders

Lesson Two: Repeat Offenders

Materials needed: With Rough Gods

Several mythological characters appear more than once in With Rough Gods. They are:

Five Appearances:
Odysseus (46, 47, 49, 50, and 51)

Four Appearances:
Apollo (15, 16, 17, and 18)
Ariadne (26, 27, 28, and 29)
Orpheus (23, 24, 25, and 29)

Three Appearances:
Agamemnon (43, 44, 47)
Danaë (32, 33, 34)
Zeus (5, 13, 33)

Two Appearances:
Cronus (5, 6)
Dionysus (15, 28)
Eros (16, 19)
Helen (45, 52)
Medusa (31, 35)
Menelaus (44, 52)
Persephone (20, 23)
Perseus (35, 36)
Tiresias (37, 38)

Re-read and paraphrase the poems in which any or all of them appear and answer the following questions:

1: How are the characters the same or changed in each poem?

2: Is the named character always, sometimes, or never the speaker? What does this say about the character? What would the poems be like if this were reversed?

3: How does each characteristic (sameness vs difference and speaker vs audience) inform the meaning and experience of each poem?