reading options: brief impressions based on spider-women

For the assignment next week, and probably week three, I will most definitely be reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I like that it features many lesser known gods, goddesses, and mortals. I will be reading part two for sure—zeroed in on it when I saw that Persephone, Arachne, and Medea would be involved. I usually browse Theoi and see Ovid used as a source, so it will be interesting to see those passages in context.

Illustration of Arachne by Gustave Doré of 1861 edition of Dante's Inferno. Web source.

In weeks four and five, the collections of Egyptian myths and Sinbad’s travels caught my eye. Both these units are from new and different cultures I don’t know as much about as Greek stories, for example. I have also never read anything from 1001 nights. And I love seafaring stories and creation myths! Plus, they’re both collections, and two stories (or more) stories are better than one.

For weeks eleven and twelve, I can’t wait to dig into Celtic stories. I’m especially interested in Jenkyn Thomas’ The Welsh Fairy Book and Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene. Both these units look like they have many supernatural elements, which I enjoy. Haunted lakes, supernatural monsters, and Merlin sound like my speed.