Final Paper for Term.

Final Paper for Term. Due no later than end of Day Dec 10 (2020)
In this assignment you will consider 5 works of the Humanities. You will compare the (1) tale of Pygmalion found in
Ovid’s Metamorphoses and with the story of (2) Pygmalion found in the Romance of the Rose. I provide a
downloadable file of the last book (chapter 10) of the Romance of the Rose, which contains the Pygmalion episode in
the modules I have created a video on the Romance of the Rose. I also want you to consider the two modern poems
about Galatea, (3) “Galatea Again” and (4) “Galatea before the Mirror” . I have included the poems here and want
you to considerhow they represent (and contrast with) the earlier Pygmalion myths. And finally, I want you to
consider this modern painting about Galatea (5). I have put the image of the painting. below.
In your paper (which does not have to be a research paper and needs no bibliography) I want you to consider as many
of these issues as you can.
1. In the Romance of the Rose, how is the reason why Pygmalion creates Galatea fundamentally different from
the reason why Ovid’s Pygmalion creates his statue?
2. How are both Pygmalion’s like Narcissus, as well as like the Lover in the Romance of the Rose – and why is
this important for the Romance of the Rose?
3. In the Romance of the Rose, how does Pygmalion express is amazement, disgust and pain at his unusual love?
4. In the Romance of the Rose, how does the text make it more clear that Pygmalion is out of his mind?
5. In the Romance of the Rose, how is the Lover also out of his mind?
6. In the Romance of the Rose, how does Pygmalion dress up Galatea?
7. In the Romance of the Rose, what is significant about the way Pygmalion marries Galatea even though she is,
at this point, still a statue?
8. In the Romance of the Rose, how does Pygmalion seem to reject a normal religious wedding? Who does he
call upon to sanctify his wedding? What pagan gods?
9. In what way does this rejection of standard religious belief mirror how the lover in In the Romance of the
Rose, is rejecting standard morality?
10. In the Romance of the Rose, how does the actions of Pygmalion show the courtly love of luxury and
refinement?
11. In the Romance of the Rose, how is Pygmalion’s Venus clearly a goddess who hates chastity?
12. In the Romance of the Rose, why is it important that Galatea in fact makes it clear she wants Pygmalion?
13. In the Romance of the Rose, how is the way the text makes clear Pygmalion and Galatea enjoy themselves
connect with major themes of the Romance of the Rose?
14. How does the version of the Pygmalion story in the In the Romance of the Rose, display various fantasies and
obsessions?
15. In the short poem, “Galatea Again”, why does Galatea want to be a dead statue again?
16. In the short poem, “Galatea Again”, why do you think Galatea mentions that her mouth is ‘bruised?”
17. In the short poem Galatea Before the Mirror, why does Galatea hate Pygmalion and what does that have to do
with his power of being a creator of a fantasy. ?
18. In the painting, how does the difference in gender of Pygmalion, for you, change the meaning of the myth – or
does it?
19. Note the ‘Pygmalion’ in the painting is wearing classical dress. Is this perhaps the ‘traditional’ Pygmalion?
20. Note that this picture seems to be set in a museum; why is this significant?
21. Note that there is also a pale white statue of what may be Aphrodite. Is this Galatea before she came to life?
22. Why do you think the statue, as it is being made alive, seems to be crying?
Galatea Again
Let me be marble, marble once again:
Go from me slowly, like an ebbing pain,
Great mortal feuds of moving flesh and blood:
This mouth so bruised, serene again,–and set
In its old passive changelessness, the rude
Wild crying face, the frantic eyes–forget
The little human shuddering interlude.

O Sons of Men, though you cry out and groan
And plead with me to take you for my own
And clutch my dress as a child, I shall not care,
But only turn on you a marble stare
And stun you with the quiet gaze of stone.
Genevieve Taggard (1929)

And if you follow and confront me there,
Galatea before the Mirror. Claribel Alegría (1993)
My perfection is not mine –
You invented it.

I am only the mirror,
In which you preen yourself.
And for that very reason.
I despise you.

Extra Credit possibility, worth an extra 30% to be added to the paper. Go and rent the Japanese movie Air Doll
(available with English subtitles). I will also provide a paper I have written on it. Then write your own essay (at least
400 words long) about the movie, how it fit an international, multicultural approach to the Humanities, and what
aspects of that movie meant the most to you.