DENIAL AND ACCEPTANCE: A CORE MYTH OF ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE IN THE MODERN LYRIC

Murdoch examines the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and the futility of the denial of death as a literary theme in world poetry from antiquity to contemporary times. The story of Orpheus and Eurydice has memorable narrative elements: his exceptional skills as a singer, the conditional chance he is given, and his descent into the infernal regions. There is also an implicit tension, even though the audience of the retold myth knows that Orpheus will in fact turn and look back. At the base of the myth is the fact that no human effort, not even the skills of a singer who can otherwise charm nature itself, can bring someone back from the dead. The quite literal turning point is the breaking of the prohibition. Turning to look at Eurydice means that Orpheus must face the fact that his wife is dead. The moment of perception makes clear that what had gone before was a hopeless state of denial on his part. The myth is not a memento mori; that the death of every individual is inevitable hardly needs reinforcing. Rather it contextualizes that inevitability, pointing to the necessity for those still living in the world to come to terms with the loss of someone close, so that the theme is the acceptance of loss.