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Writing Workshop #5 (from Friday's class)


In class, we discussed the origins of fantasy writing in mythology and the earliest stories than mankind told one another, and we also discussed how 'myth' doesn't necessary mean 'fake or false,' but rather, a poetic way of seeing yourself in the world. Or, as Joseph Campbell, the writer of The Power of Myth, The Hero of a Thousand Faces wrote,

"“Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth—penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words…I think of mythology as the homeland of the muses, the inspirers of art, the inspirers of poetry. To see life as a poem and yourself as participating in a poem is what the myth does for you...[by poem] I mean a vocabulary in the form not of words but of acts and adventures, which connotes something transcendent of the action here, so that you always feel in accord with the universal being.”

Writing Workshop #5 (use the picture above): In your world, this image depicts a myth that every woman is taught when she comes of age, teaching her something very valuable about what it means to be a woman (either who she is or who she should be). Tell the story of this image keeping the idea of a myth/allegory in mind.

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