The Eternal Return: Oedipus, The Tempest, Forbidden Planet

by David Sheppard

The Eternal Return is Volume II of the Tales of the Mythic World series. Volume I is titled Introduction to Frankenstein. This narrative discusses the relationship between Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus (429 BC), Shakespeare's The Tempest (1611), and the Adler/Hume movie Forbidden Planet (1956). It also delves into the relationships between the authors' lives and their work.

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 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.

118 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 15, 2012

About the author

David Sheppard is the author of the non-fiction books Story Alchemy, Novelsmithing and Oedipus on a Pale Horse. David has a bachelor's from Arizona State University and a master's from Stanford University, and he has also studied American Literature at the University of Colorado. His poetry has appeared in The Paris Review, and in the Arvon International Poetry Competition Anthology (Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney, Editors). A veteran of many writing groups and conferences, David is a past member of the Rocky Mountain Writers Guild, having chaired its Literary Society and participated in its Live Poets Society and Advanced Novel Workshop. He has taught astronomy, novel writing, and Greek mythology at New Mexico State University - Carlsbad. He has also traveled throughout Western Europe, and is an amateur photographer and astronomer.