Persephone, personified?
—from the Rhymes With Camera Substack, June 2, 2024—
I have smart friends from whom I learn things all the time. They indirectly remind me of what I don’t know, of my creative blind spots—one being the world of mythology.
I mean, I learned Western mythology basics in school, even a lot of Native American mythos. In college, I had an amazing Shakespeare professor who took us on mythology deep dives that I’m forever grateful for.
But then, regrettably, I let the subject drop.
That said, I recently dipped into folklore* to write my novelette, Trust Fall.
This longform piece, couched in an experimental contemporary fairytale, borrows from the story map of an obscure Italian folk tale, The Flea, about a king who becomes so obsessed with a flea that he neglects his own family to a tragic end.
Ah. Broken families.
I know something about this.
As I revised Trust Fall, I thought about Shakespeare’s generous use of mythos to characterize the broken families and failed kingdoms in some of his plays. For instance: …
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*No, folklore and mythology aren’t the same. But they’re interconnected. Folklore describes stories and values passed down through generations, whereas mythology is a type of folklore that typically represents origin stories.