A Comparative Study of Rita Dove and Louise Glück’s
Rewriting of the Persephone Myth
Abstract: Rita Dove and Louise Glück are two significant contemporary American
female poets whose works demonstrate creative reconstructions of classical
mythology. In their respective collections Mother Love and Averno, they each rewrite
the Greek myth of Persephone. Under their pens, the once-silent queen of the
underworld is granted voice and subjectivity. Both poets, from a female perspective,
subvert the traditional male-centered discourse embedded in classical myth. While
they share a focus on female subjectivity and the mother-daughter relationship, their
approaches to rewriting diverge significantly. These differences also stem from their
distinct personal backgrounds. As an African American poet, Dove’s rewriting reflects
the historical and racial experiences of African American; Glück, by contrast,
emphasizes interior monologue and uses the figure of Persephone to explore personal
emotions. This paper examines the two poets’ different strategies in rewriting the
myth through three perspectives: the reconstruction of female subjectivity, the
reconstruction of the mother-daughter relationship, and the projection of personal
experience, in order to reveal the multiple meanings and possibilities myth carries in
contemporary women’s poetry.
Keywords: Rita Dove; Louise Glück; Persephone myth; mythology rewriting
1. Introduction
Rita Dove and Louise Glück are two of the most influential female poets in
contemporary American literature. Rita Dove won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and
served as the U.S. Poet Laureate twice, in 1993 and 1995. Louise Glück served as the
U.S. Poet Laureate in 2003 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2020.
Both of them modernized and rewrote the mythological story of Persephone in their
respective collections. This paper focuses on their respective rewritings of the
Persephone myth, as presented in Dove’s Mother Love (1995) and Glück’s Averno
(2006), and explores the similarities and differences in the rewriting of this myth in
terms of female consciousness, mother-daughter relationship and the projection of
cultural experience in the two poetry collections.
The myth of Persephone, drawn from ancient Greek mythology, tells the story of
a young maiden who is abducted by Hades, the god of the underworld, and taken to
his realm to become his queen. Her mother, Demeter, the goddess of harvest and
fertility, mourns her absence so deeply that she causes the earth to become barren.
Eventually, a compromise is reached: Persephone is allowed to return to the upper
world for part of the year, while spending the remaining time in the underworld. This
myth traditionally explains the changing of the seasons but has also been interpreted
as a symbolic tale of female transition, separation, and loss of innocence. Such as,
Mara Lynn Keller explained this myth from the following three perspectives:
fertility and birth, sexuality and marriage, death and rebirth (27-54). The school of
psychology represented by Jung holds that myth is a representative of “collective
unconsciousness”, which is “identical in all men and thus constitutes a common
psychic substrate of a suprapersonal nature which is present in everyone of us. (Jung
4)” In the rewritings by the two poets, they creatively transform archetypes, not only
evoking deep resonance within the collective unconscious but also turning myth into a
vehicle for articulating female experience and cultural critique.
Dove’s Mother Love weaves the mythological framework with human emotions,
using the entanglements among Demeter, Persephone, and Hades to narrate a secular
story. By assigning modern identities to mythological figures and placing the ancient
myth within a contemporary context, Dove imparts new meaning to the story. Glück’s
Averno, while reconstructing the story of Persephone, also incorporates the voices of
an objective narrators, embedding the collection within the realities of contemporary
society. Both poets use myth as the structural backbone of their collections, allowing
mythological figures to “live” in the present. Their subversive rewritings align with
the view of post-Jungian theorist Karen Armstrong: “There is never a single, orthodox
version of a myth. As our circumstances change, we need to tell our stories differently
in order to bring out their timeless truth.(4)”
This paper will compare Dove’s and Glück’s poetic rewritings of the Persephone
myth through three interrelated dimensions. The first is the construction of female
consciousness: how each poet reconfigures Persephone’s identity and agency. The
second is the portrayal of the mother-daughter relationship, a central emotional
dynamic in both works. The third is the influence of cultural experience: how race,
history, and personal background shape the poetic meaning of myth. Through this
comparative lens, the study aims to illuminate the diverse ways in which
contemporary women poets reclaim myth not only as literary inheritance, but also as a
powerful site of self-expression and cultural critique.
2. Rewriting of Female Subjectivity
In traditional male-dominated narratives, female figures in mythology are often
presented as singular and rigid archetypes. Whether they are depicted as “virtuous,”
“obedient,” “rebellious,” or “evil,” these identities are constructed within the
framework of male discourse and power. In the original myth of Persephone,, this
figure is largely passive and voiceless —a young maiden abducted by Hades and an
“object” of the contention between the male god Hades and her mother Demeter. Her
subjectivity is nearly absent; no one knows what Persephone herself thinks. This
absence has inspired later writers and poets to retell and revise the story from a more
critical and feminist perspective.
In Rita Dove’s Mother Love, the speakers are often Persephone and her mother
Demeter. After being taken to the underworld, Persephone feels fear, but she also
declares:
you can live beyond dying—
and become a queen
whom nothing surprises. (Collected Poems 209)
Dove reimagines Persephone’s relationship with Hades in modern society, as a
consensual romance rather than an act of forced abduction. Persephone is no longer
the pitiful, violated girl who has lost her chastity; instead, she becomes an ordinary
woman with autonomy and desire. She lives in the “city of lights,” savoring the
freedom that comes from escaping her mother’s control. She becomes a nude model
and enjoys the pleasures of food:
She swallowed, sliced into a pear,
speared each tear-shaped lavaliere
and popped the dripping mess into her pretty mouth. (229)
The “pear” in this scene clearly represents the mythological “pomegranate”(Gan
58), but Dove reinterprets the act: Persephone is not tricked into eating it, nor does
she eat out of ignorance. Instead, she actively enjoys the fruit, reclaiming pleasure and
choice. Her consumption becomes an assertion of agency rather than a trap. Through
this transformation, Dove reconstructs Persephone’s identity not as a victim but as a
woman with voice, desire, and self-determination.
In contrast, Louise Glück’s Averno focuses on Persephone’s personal emotional
expression, allowing her to speak introspectively about her experiences. In “October,”
Persephone reflects in the first person on the trauma and pain caused by violence:
Wasn’t my body rescued, wasn’t it safe
didn’t the scar form, invisible above the injury (Poems 484)
terror and cold,
didn’t they just end, (484)
Even after being safely returned to her mother, fear continues to haunt her.
Persephone persistently questions: why does a rescued body still feel unsafe? Why are
invisible scars more enduring than visible wounds?
The phrase “violence has changed me” is repeated twice, emphasizing how the
so-called “love” masked by violence is not a gift but a source of enduring torment.
For Persephone, the trauma is not over just because the event has ended. She remains
trapped in the psychological aftermath. Glück’s use of inner monologue shows how
traumatic memory continues to ferment within the consciousness of the victim. Even
though the violence has stopped, its shadow lingers. Glück further highlights the harsh
reality that survivors often face: society’s tendency to question the victim rather than
condemn the crime:
did she cooperate in her rape,
or was she drugged,
violated against her will,
as happens so often now to modern girls (491).
Through Persephone’s experience, Glück brings attention to a pervasive social
issue — rape, and the victim-blaming culture surrounding it. People’s suspicion and
indifference toward victims often surpass their anger toward the crime itself. By
giving Persephone a voice, Glück allows this long-silenced figure to step forward and
speak her pain, demanding recognition and empathy.
Both Rita Dove and Louise Glück reconstruct Persephone’s position within the
myth by centering her voice and subjectivity, yet they do so through significantly
different ways. Dove empowers Persephone through autonomy, desire, and agency,
turning her into a woman who consciously chooses her path and embraces freedom
beyond maternal control. In contrast, Glück highlights the psychological scars of
patriarchal violence, allowing Persephone to voice her trauma, confusion, and pain in
a deeply personal and introspective tone. Through these poetic interventions, both
poets challenge the male-dominated narrative framework and redefine what it means
to be seen, heard, and remembered.
3. Rewriting of the Mother-Daughter Relationship
The mother-daughter relationship is always ignored by people in the Persephone
myth. In its classical version, Demeter’s grief over her daughter’s abduction is so
intense that it leads to the withering of the earth. Yet, even in this foundational story,
the emotional exchange remains largely one-sided—Persephone’s feelings are left
unspoken, and the narrative centers on Demeter’s maternal loss rather than the
daughter’s inner experience. In their rewritings, both Rita Dove and Louise Glück
place this relationship under critical scrutiny, acknowledging Persephone’s
long-standing silence under the guise of her mother’s “protection.” In Dove’s poems,
Persephone is directly endowed with a rebellious personality—she actively escapes
her mother Demeter’s control and goes to the city to enjoy freedom. Eventually,
however, mother and daughter reach a form of reconciliation. In contrast, Glück’s
poems reveal the deep fractures in this maternal bond: Persephone is treated as an
extension of her mother, and Demeter’s emotional coldness and control leave her
daughter without a true sense of belonging.
In Mother Love, Dove traces the transformation of the mother-daughter
relationship through Persephone’s coming of age, highlighting the shift from
estrangement to compromise. The daughter is driven by a strong sense of
independence. Thus, when she descends to the “city of lights,” a modern metaphor for
the mythic underworld, her posture is assertive and self-directed:
Girded, then, with youth and good tennis shoes,
I climbed down guided
by the smell of bread,
the reek of multiplying yeast. (Collected Poems 215)
Later, when Demeter and Persephone meet in the poem “Bistro Styx,” Demeter
notices that her daughter’s appearance and worldview have changed dramatically.
Persephone gives evasive answers to her questions, prompting Demeter to realize,
“I’ve lost her”(230). Persephone’s departure causes Demeter immense grief and also
reveals the mother’s excessive possessiveness:
She is gone again and I will not bear
it, I will drag my grief through a winter
of my own making and refuse
any meadow that recycles itself into
hope. (238)
However, in the later poem “Demeter’s Prayer to Hades,” the mother finally
undergoes a transformation of her own. She comes to terms with her daughter’s
departure and decides to stop wandering and begin a new chapter in her life (Gan 59):
And so I give up this fate, too.
Believe in yourself,
go ahead—see where it gets you. (242)
Thus, through Persephone’s pursuit of independence and Demeter’s eventual
compromise, Dove reimagines the mother-daughter relationship as a dynamic process
of separation, pain, and eventual reconciliation, highlighting both the cost and
necessity of female individuation.
Louise Glück, in contrast, presents a far more fragmented and emotionally distant
vision of the mother-daughter bond in Averno. In her poems, Demeter’s love is
possessive and oppressive. Demeter and Persephone often seem unable to connect or
communicate. Their voices are marked by coldness, silence, or disillusionment. This
depiction is closely related to Glück’s own emotional experiences. Her older sister
died in infancy, which created a deep emotional rift between Glück and her mother.
Later, Glück also found herself in emotional competition with her younger sister for
their mother’s affection. As a result, her relationship with her mother was marked by
emotional coldness and a lack of maternal warmth. This experience is mirrored in the
strained mother-daughter dynamic throughout Averno. In the collection, Glück
imagines two versions of Persephone’s fate. In the first “Persephone the Wanderer,”
Persephone returns to her mother’s side, but she finds the maternal realm just as
suffocating as the underworld. Although she has escaped Hades’ imprisonment, her
mother’s control still dominates her. Persephone is described not as an individual, but
as an “existential replica” of her mother (Poems, 492). The poem’s third-person voice
reveals Persephone’s internal doubts — whether the earth is truly her home, and
whether she is anything more than an extension of her mother. The narrator then
concludes: “she has been a prisoner since she has been a daughter.(493)” In the
second version, Persephone dies, and her mother’s grief is stripped of emotional depth:
“her mother grieves—problems of sexuality need not trouble us here.(539)” This line
implies an intentional disregard for Persephone’s individuality and experiences.
Moreover, the mother’s desire for control is taken to an extreme: “what are you doing
outside my body?(541)” Here, the mother does not even recognize her daughter’s
bodily autonomy — Persephone’s body is considered a mere part of her own. This
metaphor of physical possession reveals the depth of the mother’s psychological
dominance and the daughter’s utter loss of identity.
Glück takes Persephone as the main subject of his description. Through the
depiction of her inner activities and the performance of her mother, he reveals
Persephone’s oppressed position in the mother-daughter relationship. It further reveals
the image of Persephone as an eternal prisoner — she is not only a victim of the
patriarchal society but also the oppressed in family relationships.
Thus, in rewriting the myth of Persephone, both Rita Dove and Louise Glück
foreground the often-neglected mother-daughter relationship, but they approach it
from strikingly different angles. Dove reimagines it as a dynamic journey from
conflict to compromise. Glück, on the other hand, reveals the emotional damage
inflicted by a possessive mother, presenting a bleaker vision of maternal control and
alienation. The two poets keenly captured the current situation of women: they are not
only oppressed by male narratives, but also their independence in the growth of the
family is being greatly challenged.
4. Projection of Individual Experience in Rewriting
In the rewriting of the myth by the two poets, it is inevitable to incorporate their
own experience. There are obvious projections of private experiences in both Mother
Love and Averno. Their divergent cultural backgrounds significantly shape the content
and symbolic depth of their poetic rewritings. Dove, an African American poet with a
deep historical consciousness, embeds racial and cultural identity into her adaptation
of the myth. Glück, on the other hand, influenced by the confessional school, focuses
intensely on psychological interiority. These cultural lenses offer distinct interpretive
frameworks that reshape Persephone’s identity.
Rita Dove grew up in a middle-class family, and thus, despite being African
American, she did not suffer much from racial discrimination. Her creative career was
largely sheltered. As a result, Dove’s work often lacks the overt racial tone found in
the writings of many other Black authors. As Vendler noted, “Dove was writing
color-neutral poems” (384). This does not mean that Dove completely abandoned
Black literary traditions, but rather that her poetry reflects a more universal human
experience. In fact, as an African American poet, Dove incorporates numerous
elements of Black culture into her work. In Mother Love, for instance, she does not
explicitly identify whether Demeter and Persephone are Black, yet she subtly includes
references to African American culture, such as the “banjo” and “African drums,” as
well as descriptions of Black hair — “wearing foam curlers arraigned like piglets”
(Gan 60). Furthermore, Dove’s portrayal of Persephone’s coming-of-age can be read
as a metaphor for the African American quest for identity. After arriving in the “city of
light,” Persephone finds herself surrounded by French and exclaims, “I don’t belong
here” (Collected Poems 221). She also fails to feel warmth in the unfamiliar city:
the city around me
I am waiting
it was cold I entered
you rise into my arms
I entered for warmth (243)
This is a young African American girl from the United States, experiencing a
sense of dislocation and confusion about her identity while living in Paris (the city of
light), a foreign cultural space. However, when her mother inquires about her life in
the city, Persephone’s response reveals a resistance to the cultural identity her mother
represents. Thus, Persephone’s process of identity formation reflects the complex
struggle of African Americans attempting to construct a sense of self in a foreign land.
Louise Glück was a student of Stanley Kunitz, a leading figure of the
post-confessional school. After graduating from college, she became a university
professor and experienced two marriages. Her rich personal life—including the loss of
loved ones, the pain of illness, psychotherapy, and failed marriages —contributed to
the profound themes and emotional depth of her poetry. Thus Glück’s life experiences
consistently compelled her to “explore her inner spiritual world” (Li, Sun 188). As
Glück once remarked: “Like most of the people in that family, I had a strong desire to
speak, but that desire was regularly frustrated: my sentences were, in being cut off,
radically changed—transformed, not paraphrased” (5).
Therefore, when rewriting the story of Persephone, Glück and Dove display
significant differences. Dove endows Persephone with a bold, rebellious spirit, and
her poetic language is extroverted and passionate. In contrast, Glück’s poetry is
introspective, restrained, and severe. She does not assign Persephone overt traits;
rather, she allows her to speak calmly and reveal her inner voice—something Glück
herself longed for. Moreover, Glück’s refusal to romanticize motherhood or offer easy
resolutions starkly contrasts with Dove’s narrative of reconciliation and generational
understanding. Where Dove sees conflict and compromise, Glück presents emotional
void. This contrast in tone and vision is reflective of broader experience differences:
Dove writes from a position that acknowledges historical trauma but seeks healing
and continuity; Glück’s traumas in her life prevented her from reaching reconciliation.
In both collections, myth functions as a general background to project personal
experience—an ancient narrative overwritten with contemporary meanings. Yet, the
nature of the rewriting differs: Dove draws on collective identity and historical
resonance, while Glück mines the depths of individual memory and psychological
fragmentation.
5. Conclusion
By rewriting the myth of Persephone, Rita Dove and Louise Glück overturn a
traditionally male-centered narrative and transform it into a space for female voice,
identity, and resistance. Dove emphasizes autonomy, reconciliation, and cultural
memory, while Glück explores trauma, alienation, and inner statement. Their different
approaches reflect not only personal and poetic choices, but also distinct personal
positions—Dove as an African American poet attentive to collective history, and
Glück as a confessional poet focused on psychological interiority. Together, they
demonstrate the myth’s enduring power as a vehicle for reimagining womanhood,
making it both timeless and urgently contemporary.
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