Today was the concluding day for discussion of Apulies' The Golden Ass, with great attention still being payed to the long story within the story of Cupid and Pysche. The idea has been proposed that rather then looking upon Psyche as a bimbo--which is admittedly a conclusion easily reached, with her and a great many other heroines of fairy tale and myth--, look upon her and the story in which she moves in an allegorical sense. Her name, of course, means soul. So we are looking at the story of the evolution of the Soul, and its relation to Love. This adds a whole other fruitful dimension of contemplation.
And, similarly, the hoary fairy tale/mythological chestnut in which the protagonist is told expressly Not to do something, and then of course goes ahead and does it. Some have suggested that maybe it is necessary to disobey, because this is the only way anything of consequence ends up happening, or the protagonist ends up becoming something above and beyond. Otherwise you could fall prey to the anxiety of influence, and run the risk of feeling the need to surpass one that is above you, or something like that(and this assuming one is a writer or of some other artistic bent).

"The final belief is to believe in a fiction which you know to be a fiction, because there is nothing else." I do wish I knew what particular poem by Wallace Stevens this comes from, but it doesn't matter to much, really. It's still great for what it is on its own.

I had actually made it a goal to have TS Eliot's Four Quartets read during the summer. Who duh thunk?