Literature Essay on Fertility Myths in
Modern Literature
Jessie L. Weston’s
From Ritual to Romance, itself strongly influenced by the
genial work of J.G. Frazer, has become the main reference
for whom wishes to study myths of fertility.
More importantly, because it also constitutes the avowed
basis for T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, this anthropological
masterpiece provides scholars with a solid background for
the study of fertility and motherhood myths in previous, but
even more so, subsequent literature. Weston’s work uses,
even more than Frazer’s The Golden Bough, literary
references in order to structure and back up the general arguments
brought forward. This examination of literary sources, especially
Arthurian, makes the book particularly valuable for a better
understanding of the mythic heritage that lies behind Western
literary treatment of motherhood and fertility themes. But
it is also important as it marks a change in the use of myth
in artistic works – as T.S. Eliot’s poem demonstrates
– and forces us to analyse subsequent usages of ‘female’
myths as being a conscious borrowing from a source that has
been thoroughly examined. What this means is that a ‘post-Westonian’
author referring to fertility myths is doing so in the light
of Weston’s work and their treatment of it no longer
proceeds from an unconscious
cultural heritage or from what Jung called ‘the collective
unconscious’ .
Therefore, From Ritual to Romance is an indispensable tool
for the analysis of modern mythopoeia, especially that centred
on female issues.
Weston’s book, it is true, is a straightforward analysis
of the Holy Grail mythology that leaves little space to the
imagination. What it demonstrated, however, was crucial as
it challenged previous conceptions of mythology and culture
(especially Christian) as being entirely patriarchal and male-driven.
The recurrence and continuity of fertility rites and beliefs
in Western cultures offered a somewhat disturbing picture
of our moral ancestry, a portrait that showed irrefutable
signs of base sexual or reproductive instincts as well as
the important, or even dominant, position of motherhood in
myths and rituals.‘There is no doubt’, Weston
argues, ‘that a ceremonial “marriage” very
frequently formed a part of “Fertility” ritual,
and was supposed to be specially efficacious in bringing about
the effect desired’. A predominant feature of these
fertility rites, Weston demonstrates, is the marriage of the
Gods, and its parallel, the marriage of earth (usually female)
and rain (usually divine or male). These rites have taken
different shapes and aspects, but they all seem to point in
the same direction.
The ritual marriage, usually a festive or magical performance,
often involves symbolic acts of sexual intercourse between
a maiden (in physical shape) and a natural element symbolising
nature and its divine character. Other performances see the
act recreated by priests and priestesses, which often results
in the figurative birth of an ear of corn or a similar symbol
of natural fertility. This association between human and natural
fertility is central to Weston’s work.
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