The Eternal Return: Oedipus, The Tempest, Forbidden Planet (Tales of the Mythic World, #2)

Father/daughter stories have resonated with readers throughout history, and this current narrative depicts three such relationships encountered in (1) ancient myth, (2) the Elizabethan stage, and (3) modern cinema. Volume one, Introduction to Frankenstein, of this the Tales of the Mythic World series dealt peripherally with the relationship between Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, and her father, the philosopher William Godwin. In this second volume, titled The Eternal Return, we encounter more directly three literary relationships: Oedipus and Antigone from Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, Prospero and Miranda from Shakespeare's The Tempest, and Morbius and Altaira from the 1956 movie Forbidden Planet.
The reason for treating all three in a single narrative is that they are related. Forbidden Planet is a known derivative of The Tempest, but The Tempest is also related to Oedipus at Colonus, either intentionally or not, and the totality of the Oedipus myth is related to Forbidden Planet. The relationship between all three goes even deeper through what the psychologist Carl Jung called the Collective Unconscious. So come with the author as he explores this amazing phenomenon of the human psyche called the Eternal Return.

David Sheppard is the author of Story Alchemy: The Search for the Philosopher's Stone of Storytelling, and Novelsmithing: The Structural Foundation of Plot, Character, and Narration. He is also the author of the non-fiction work Oedipus on a Pale Horse, and the novel The Mysteries, A Novel of Ancient Eleusis (two volumes). He holds a bachelor's from Arizona State and a master's from Stanford University. He also studied creative writing and American Literature at the University of Colorado. His poetry has appeared in The Paris Review and in England (The 1987 Arvon International Poetry Competition Anthologyjudged by Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney). While living in Colorado he was a member of the Rocky Mountain Writers Guild for seven years, participated in its Live Poets Society and Advanced Novel Workshop, and chaired its Literary Society. He founded a novel critique group that lasted ten years. He has attended the Aspen Writers Conference in Colorado and the Sierra Writing Camp in California. He has taught Novel Writing and Greek Mythology at New Mexico State University at Carlsbad. He has traveled throughout western Europe and is an amateur photographer and astronomer.