Postmodernism (1945-Present)
Mulitcultural
Postcolonial
Homo Ludens (vs. Sapiens, Faber) : Ludic Synretism
Bricolage
Classical to Hellenistic, Renaissance to Baroque (Davids), Impressionism to Modernism
Mythical Method :
T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land
Joseph Campbell’s Hero Journey
Heinrich Zimmer
Mircea Eliade
Marija Gimbutas
Robert Graves
Maya Deren:
Divine Horsemen
Agwé, Ghédé, Azacca, Erzulie, Ogoun, Houngan
Vever
Multiculural Syncretism
Fusion of the Arts: film, music, painting, clothing, dance
“Ritual in Transfigured Time”
Nekyia: Fates, Doorways, and Arches, Sea-Journey
Martha Graham
Night Journey
Igor Stravinsky, “Rites of Spring” (1912)
Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe, and Nijinksy
New York City Ballet (1930): Balanchine
Freud and the Oedipus Complex
Jean Erdman
Joseph Campbell and the Arthurian Romance
T.S. Eliot and The Waste Land (1922)
“mythical method” (shape & significance vs. anarchy & futility)
“The Perilous Chapel” (1959): 8
“Solstice” (1950): infinity sign, Bull vs. Lion
Koyaanisquatsi
Minimalism and Serialism in Philip Glass
Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, Akhnaten (1975-85)
Gandhi’s “Truth Force,” Bhagavad Gita
John Cage
Collage, Montage, and Sergei Eisenstein
Abstract Art
Frank Stella: Black and White Rectangles to Protractors
Kenneth Noland: Multicolored Triangles
Gene Davis: Lines and Colored Stripes
Josef Albers: Homage to the Square, Washburn Bible
Barnet Newman: Stations of Cross, Lines, Triangles, Rectangles
Rich:
Orpheus, Eurydice and Cocteau’s Film
Necrotypes in “The Wreck”
Márquez:
Angel, Magic Realism
Borges:
Dr. Yu Tsun, Ts’ui Pên, Victor Runeberg,
Dr. Stephen Albert, Captain Richard Madden
Nietzsche and the “Eternal Recurrence”
Labyrinth: Time and the Novel
“Death and the Compass” and Kabbalah
“The Aleph,” “The Circular Ruins,” and “The Golem”
Alifa Rifaat
Serpent, Gnosticism, and Islamic Mysticism
Djinn and Mundus Imaginalis (álam al-mithál)
Eco
The Name of the Rose and the Middle Ages
Kabbalah, Alchemy, Templars Grail and Nazism
Nekyia (Eidola): Provins, Crypt of Tomar, Mining Museum, Paris
Calvino
Cosmicomics, Tarot Cards
Borges, “Death and the Compass”
Necrotypes:
fluvian: “blind little river” (82)
Diurnal: “deserted afternoon,” dusk (83)
Zoomorphic: “dogs” (83)
Arboreal: “black eucalyptai” (83)
Threshold: “insurmountable gate” (83)
Labyrinthine: Triste-le-Roy
Catoptric: “multiplied infinitely in opposing mirrors” (84)
Geometric: diamonds, triangle, rhomb (Tetragrammaton)
Allusions
Lonnröt (Finnish Kalevala)
Nordic: Odin hanging from Yggdrasil (Poetic Eddas)
Classical: 2-faced Hermes (83)
Kabbalah and Hermeticism (77, 81)
Nekyia:
Temenos (Revelation, Eidos) and Inferno
Theory:
Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (1928)
Calvino’s Invisible Cities: Reductio Elementae
Eidola:
“patterns following one another as in a musical score” (15)
“a city without figures and without form” (34)
“successive superimpositions from the first, now undecipherable plan” (35)
“combining elements of that first model” (35)
“give their form to desires” (35)
“dismantling the city piece by piece,” substituting components s (43)
“one element of the story and another” (38) “change of elements” (43)
“a connecting thread, an inner rule, a perspective, a discourse” (44)
“elements,” “stuff of crystals, its molecules arranged in a perfect pattern” (60)
“model city from which all possible cities can be deduced” (69)
“spiderwebs of intricate relationships seeking a form” (76)
“city’s true form” (96)
“design,” “true proportions,” “geometrical scheme,” “harmonious pattern” (97)
“arranged in a different order” (106)
“essential landscape” “invisible order” “harmonious system” “system of forms” (122)
“reduce them to the essential” (123, 131)
“the catalogue of forms is endless” “until every shape has found its form” (139)
Geometrical: “spiral seashells” and “spiral staircases” (8)
4 towers, 7 gates, 4 canals, 9 quarters (9)
“concentric canals” (12) and “concentric circles” (129)
“central square deep as a well, with a well in its centre” (92)
“geometrical scheme” (96)
“an aggregation of opaque polyhedrons” (156)
Symbols:
“honeycomb” (15)
“zodiac” (23, 144) “order of the constellations” (150)
“diamond” “crystal” “molecule” (60)
“network of canals” (88)
“carpet” and “map” (96-7)
“diamond gates in a jewel city” (111)
“blueprint” (127)
“cogs in a meticulous clockwork” (150)
Semiotics:
“sign of another thing” (13)
“images of things that mean another thing” (13)
“thick coating of signs” and “figures” (14)
“gestures” “pantomimes that the sovereign had to interpret” (21)
“the Great Khan deciphered the signs” (22)
“the power of emblems” (22) “an emblem among emblems” (23
“the figures evoked by the Venetian’s logogriphs” (23)
“objects from his bag” (38)
“mute commentary” of gestures (39)
“signals one sends out, not knowing who receives them” (164)
Myths:
Nekyia (55, 94, 109,165); Nymphs (49-50), Penates and Lares (127)
Leonora Carrington: The Hearing Trumpet
Ludic Syncretism:
1. Hermetic: Rosicrucians, Agrippa von Nettesheim, Zosimos, Homunculus
(Black Stallion), Hermaphrodite and Sephira (Hebrew Letter 118)
2. Great Goddess: Diana and Cup of Honey (Bee Symbolism), Mary
Magdalen (Lawrence, Kazantzakis, H.D.), Epona, Hekate (Letter 118),
Anubeth
3. Arthurian: Galahad, Taliessin, Sidhe, Annwn, Ceridwen’s Cauldron,
Templars, Grail
4. Nekyia: El Convento de Santa Barbara de Tartarus (54), Annwn, Sidhe,
Friar Nacob and Order of the Holy Coffin, Magdalen’s Mummy, Rosalinda
as “unknown stranger from the netherworld” (121), Hecate and Cauldron in
Hell (171-72)
5. Biblical: Gabriel, Mary Magdalen, Apocalypse
Postmodernism:
Epistolary Novel, Frame Tale and Secret Text, Pseudoepigraphia
Carrington’s Revisonary Feminism:
The Great Goddess, the Nekyia, the Holy Grail, and the Apocalypse
Original Chalice of Venus contained elixir of life, which when drunk made Cupid a god
Chalice fell to Cavern Sanctuary of Epona-Barbarus-Hecate during labor
Chalice stolen by Seth, then Templar, into both Jewish and Christian contexts
Templars take Chalice to West of Ireland, Rath of Conor
Leering Abbess of Santa Barbara conspires with Taliessin to steal Chalice, but fails
(Leering Abbess gives birth to Cupid and dies)
Apocalyptic reversal of poles destroys Rath of Conor, Chalice taken to London
Taliessin and Coven at Hampstead Heath track Grail to vault under Bank of England
Rupert Traffix (Jesuits) fly Grail to city where the Old Ladies’ Home is
Marian’s friend Marlborough arrive in Ark with werewolf sister Anubeth
Old Ladies conjure Bee Goddess Zam Pollum and steal Grail from Archbishop and return
it to Goddess
Traditional Grail Motifs: Ceridwen and Taliessin, Annwn, Great Goddess, Apocalypse,
Château Merveille, Sidhe, Templars
Goddess Motifs: Bees and Honey, Diana, Venus and Evening Star, Epona and Macha
(White Mares), Hekate, Cauldron and Cup, Mary Magdalen’s Ointment
Hermetic Motifs: Vessel, Coniniunctio and Hermaphrodite, Sephira and Sephiroth,
Zosimos (4th century A.D.)
Necrotypes: Ocular Symbolism, Underground Chambers, Labyrinth, Womb and Tomb
Bee Goddess, Maze, Nekyia and Poesis
Mycenaean Seals: goddesses with wasp waists, bee heads
Mycenaean burial sites (tomb at Pylos): large beehive
Minoan Linear B tablets: “a jar of honey” to the “Lady of the Labyrinth”
Asia Minor: dead were embalmed in honey, “pithoi”
Classical Greece: Demeter: “pure mother bee” offered honey cakes
Aphrodite (Melissa), Priestesses, (melissae), Golden Honeycomb
Delphic priestesses: bee goddesses, honey mead (441–42).
Sirens in the Odyssey
Norse myth: mead of wisdom, a mixture of honey and blood
Cauldrons, Cooking, Sacred Vessels
Medea: Jason’s Step-Father, Ram
Ceridwen and Taliessin: Poetry, Reincarnation, Prophecy
Hieronymous Bosch’s “Teufelsköchin”
Witches in Shakespeare and Goethe: Riddles, Renewal, Prophecy (Fates)
Hansel and Gretel: Cooking (Womb/Tomb, Transformation)
Triple Goddess
Classical: Demeter, Persephone, Hecate
Celtic: Graves’ “White Goddess” and the Moon
Hinduism: Three Gunas and Kali
Nekyia + Archetype = Necrotype
Angela Carter
“Penetrating to the Heart of the Forest”
Forest and Arboreal (Woods and Trees)
Fluvian: River Journey
Toad (Hermetic, Miltonic, Shakespearean): Mayan / Aztec; Egyptian amulets, mummies
Floral: Water Lily that bites
Poeisis: Musical Diction
Divestiture: stripping down, bathing in river
Hermetic: alchemical change in forest, Tree in Rosarium and Janitor pansophus
Great Goddess: Aquatic (Pool), Arboreal (Tree with Breasts), Aphroditic (Oysters)
“Reflections”
Arboreal (Woods)
Floral (Persephone and Hades)
Ornithological (Sumerian and Egyptian, Blackbird)
Zoomorphic (Dog, Horse in Greek and Egyptian Myth)
Night-Sea and Aquatic
Geometric
Insectomorphic (Spider, Bee, Butterfly)
Threshold (Doors, Staircases, etc. Sumerian, Egyptian)
Catoptric (Mirrors in Postmodernism)
Solar (Solstice), Lunar, Diurnal
Divestiture (Stripping Down, Sumerian)
Diction of Nekyia: “death,” “under,” “necromantic hair,” “terror of death,” “bone
needles,” “infernal,” “dead as a shell”
Narrative of Nekyia: Woods to Room to Woods to Room to Woods
“The Bloody Chamber”
Night-Sea Journey: “sea girt castle,” “amphibious place,” “sea-siren of a place,”
“mermaiden” with “drowned lover,” “anchored, castellated ocean liner” (117), “Queen of
the Sea” (117)
Diction: “deathly composure” of face, bedroom like an “embalming parlor” (121)
Floral: “funereal lily,” “undertaker’s lilies” in her room (119)
Ocular: eyes “the Egyptians painted upon their sarcophagi, fixed upon me” (116)
Seasonal and Topographic: November in Brittanty
Catoptric: Infinite regress of mirrors in bedroom (Eco, Borges)
Divestiture: “formal disrobing of the bride,” “stripping the leaves off an artichoke” (118)
Textual: (Poeisis and Hermeneusis): Huysman’s La-bas, Eliphas Levy Key of Mysteries
and Pandora’s Box, Adventures of Eulalie at the Harem of the Grand Turk, Moreau’s
“Sacrificial Victim” (123)
Insectomorphic (Apian): voice buzzes “like a hive of distant bees” (121)
Threshold: keys of prison warder (123), “key to my enfer,” “door of hell” (132)
Underworld Passage to Forbidden Room (131-32)
Allusion to “Bluebeard’s Castle” (Perrault, Grimms, Webern)
“The Tiger’s Bride”
“Beauty and the Beast” and Cocteau
Nekyia:
Russia to Winter Time Waste Land in Italy
“deathly, sensual lethargy” (154)
“Decembral solitude”
“melancholy, introspective region”
“funereal hush”
“cold as hell”
Carriage “black as a hearse”
“a world in itself, but a dead one” (159)
Necrotypes
ocular: “yellow eyes” “annihilating vehemence of his eyes”
Floral: white roses broken at stem
Arboreal: “mutilated stumps of willows”
Zoomorphic: “little black horse,” tiger and monkey
Threshold: maze (doors, windows, stairs, arches, “Chinese boxes)
Divestiture: twice, first clothes by the river, then skin licked off
Fluvian: down by the riverside
Catoptric: magic mirror with father
Goddess
Lady of the Beasts (Lilith, Artemis, Sekhmet) and the Feline
Gnosticism
“Hymn of the Pearl”
Music
“soubrette from an opera,” “settecento minuet” (162)
Allusions
Blake’s “fearful symmetry” (156)
Mantegna, Giulio Romanos, Cellini salt cellar
Goethe’s Italy and “Erl King” (158)
Folktales: son born of a bear, tiger man, witches of Finland
Cocteau’s “Belle et Bête”
Folk Tales and Ballads: History and Transmission
Basile
Il Pentamerone (1634-36): “Sun, Moon, Talia”
Perrault
Histoires ou contes du temps passé (1697):
“Sleeping Beauty”
Grimms
Kinder und Hausmärchen (1812-15):
“Dornröschen” (“Briar Rose”)
J.G. Herder
Stimmen der Völker (1778): Völkseele
Brentano
Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1805-08): Völkslied
Goethe
“Erlkönig” (1775), Faust (1808)
Wordsworth, Coleridge
Lyrical Ballads (1798/1800)
H.C. Andersen
Tales and Stories (1835-72): Kunstmärchen
Alexander Afanasev
Russian Folktales (1855-64)
von-Franz
The Feminine in Fairytales (1972):
Jungian Archetypes: Demeter and Persephone
Miraculous Birth (Frog Prince): Gimbutas
Old Woman: Mother’s Negative Animus
Briar Rose poet's Anima
Bruno Bettelheim
Uses of Enchantment (1976): Freudian
Puberty Rites of Passage
Jack Zipes:
The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: Neo-Historicist “Punctuated
Equilibrium”
Smith, E.L.
Necrotypes: Great Goddess, Labyrinth, Mirror, Divestiture
Buddhism: Kama, Mara, Maya, Sunyata
Poeisis and Hermeneusis