Greek myth and landscape: Poems and reflections on psyche studies from a depth

The Greek myths sing of a profound connection between the early Greeks and the land in which they dwelled. This dissertation explores the relationship between the human psyche, the natural environment, and the divine through the medium of "found" mythopoetry. It explores ancient Greek consciousness and Homeric poetry and contrasts and compares it to the rationalist modern view and an evolving postmodern, phenomenological, archetypal, and ecopsychological view of consciousness. It seeks to elucidate and amplify views of the psyche-nature relationship and to suggest that a mythopoetic understanding of this connection will enhance our cultural behavior toward the natural environment of the earth.; The "found" mythopoetry, which serves as the dissertation's creative production, is based on Greek myths. The "found" poems are an attempt to understand the relationships between physical places and the states of soul that are related to those places. The poems seek to elucidate landscape archetypes through the Greek myths that are centered in these types of places. The investigation was completed by looking at Greek myths that "took place" in various places such as rivers, cliffs, mountains, and caves. It uses the technological techniques of the present (the Internet, CDs, advanced computer search techniques, and hyperlinks) coupled with postmodern fragmentary poetry techniques. These poems are then reviewed from a phenomenological point of view to uncover and re-imagine an ensouled world. Further analysis looks at the Greek idea of consciousness and self and compares it to new conceptions of the nature of self. The dissertation explores through archetypal and ecopsychological methods how the psyche and the landscape co-participate to create a sense of meaning and beauty.