The Pomegranate Seeds

"The Pomegranate Seeds" is a short story written by the American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is one of Hawthorne's works of short fiction, known for its moral and allegorical themes. The story is based on a classic myth from Greek mythology, the myth of Persephone, which explains the changing of the seasons. In Hawthorne's version, he explores the idea of temptation and the consequences of yielding to it. The story centers around the character of Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, and her daughter Proserpina, who is lured by a demon to eat pomegranate seeds from the underworld. As a result, Proserpina must spend part of each year in the underworld, leading to the changing of the seasons. Hawthorne's adaptation of the myth is notable for its moral and allegorical elements, exploring themes of temptation, loss, and the cycles of nature. It reflects his interest in retelling and reinterpreting classic myths and legends within his own literary context.

Demeter refuses to allow spring to appear until she has been reunited with her daughter Persephone, who has been abducted to the Underworld by Pluto.

Adapted from Hawthorne's "Pomegranate Seeds" published in Tanglewood Tales in 1853.

Pomegranate Seedsis the first collection of the oral tradition of Latin American Jews to be presented in English. These thirty-four tales span the 500 years of Jewish presence in Latin America and the Caribbean. The folktales and cultural oral narratives were often based on actual events, recorded not only from the Ashkenazi perspective but from the Sephardic and Oriental as well. Like dispersed pomegranate seeds, all the stories come from a common cluster, yet each is a separate kernel. The stories are short, between five and fifteen pages, and each is carefully annotated. In addition to gathering stories from eleven Latin American countries, the author found material in the United States and Israel. Regardless of their origin, several tales have to do with personal feelings, emotional insights, and interpretation of the protagonists, while others deal with happy or traumatic events that cannot be forgotten and dreams that have not been fulfilled. Not surprisingly, trauma and bigotry are common threads through some of the stories. These are tales, as Nadia Grosser Nagarajan says, "concealed by tropical greenery, encircled by vast jungles and flowing majestic rivers that echo many voices and reflect many views and visions."

From the Publisher: This volume is the first-ever collection of poems in English by 49 prominent Greek-American poets from throughout the United States. The poems cover a variety of topics and styles.

María de Salinas writes a letter to her daughter Katherine, the duchess of Suffolk. A letter telling of her life: a life intertwined with her friend and cousin Catalina of Aragon.

Seven contemporary stories grounded in prominent, mythical origins. Persephone, Hypsipyle, Medea, Alcestis, Phaedra, Creusa and Demeter: the women of Euripides' plays are reimagined as people of today in an unexpected fusion of celebrity, inappropriate desires, historical police investigations and missing children. A severed maternal bond threads each story together, charting a journey through rage and redemption, towards a compelling conclusion. This revised edition of Colin Teevan's haunting monologue cycle was published to coincide with a new production at Rose Theatre, Kingston, in November 2021.