Mythology and Folklore

Sun Wu Kung ( Wikimedia ) Week 13 EC Reading: The Monkey King Sun Wu Kung, Part A Handsome King of the Apes: · Wonder if this mountain rock burst could be referencing a volcanic eruption, would also explain the idea of a high rock mountain in the middle of the ocean. Also explains supernatural creative gifts, as volcanoes certainly have plenty of that (ie making islands) · Explanations and occurrences for the gods are always funny, “This magic rock monkey is shooting light beams from his eyes, no biggie though” It could be fun to retell this story and any others like it making fun of this aspect or even just having the gods speak to each other as teenagers would now. Would also be interesting to do a modernized retelling where the monkey king is just an angsty teen and the heavens they rebel against are their parents. · All of the sudden there are now other apes, wonder if this is in references to humans as apes or just monkeys, or even some hybrid · ...

Chanticleer ( Wikimedia ) Week 13 Reading Notes: Canterbury Tales, Part B Nun’s Priest’s Tale: The Cock, the Hen, and the Fox: · Interesting perspective on the widow’s poverty, almost funny to imagine the flipside of not having things like the fact that she would never have to deal with gout. Reveals much about the culture, I am reminded of a certain sect of Christianity from about this time that was focused on making things as plain and unornate as possible in order to make it more holy · Puritans, duh, I wonder if this woman is a puritan · Oddly enough this is the first encounter this semester with stories of barnyard (esque) animals. · I like the description of the fox in Chanticleer’s dream, creates a powerful defamiliarization and forces the reader to imagine a fox in a new way. This helps give the fox a sense of power in the mind of the reader and puts the reader into the perspective of the Cock. Might be interesting to try and include t...

The Franklin ( Wikimedia ) Week 13 Reading Notes: Canterbury Tales, Part A The Wife of Bath’s Tale: The Unknown Bride: · Interesting to compare stories with respect to their authors. From the first few paragraphs we can see how this female author shifts the power in her story to the Queen and women of the court. · The quest goal of finding what women wish for most is interesting, I wonder also how this story was received in its time · I like how this story has the dialogue embedded into paragraphs of description, might be an interesting strategy to try for my next story as I typically have been separating the two elements. I like this style though because it creates a nice cohesive feeling and flow to the story · I like the fact that the Knight does not turn away when he realizes it is not a group of young women but a crone, the opposite of what Beast does in Beauty and the Beast, might be interesting to expand upon this. · And then he does what B...