Reception Assignment: Orpheus & Eurydice

This past semester in Latin III, we read an adaptation of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The version we read was inspired by the versions found in Vergil and Ovid. Once we finished that version, we read my own adaptation of Plato's version of the ending of the myth. In the most famous version of the myth, Orpheus descends to the Underworld to retrieve his deceased wife, Eurydice. Hades/Pluto and Persephone/Proserpina allow Eurydice to leave the Underworld with Orpheus, provided that he not turn around and look at her until they have returned to the world of the living. Plato, on the other hand, briefly summarizes a different version: Since Orpheus (unlike Alcestis for Admetus) did not die to be reunited with his beloved Eurydice, Hades and Persephone deem him unworthy of her and instead send Orpheus away with, unbeknownst to him, an imitation of her. 

After we read both these endings, I wanted students to not only explain the differences between the two versions, but also examine the reception of the myth in different media, since it is such a famous myth. Hence this assignment, which requires students to watch or listen to three different reimaginations of the myth: Carlos Diegues' 1999 film Orfeu, Anaïs Mitchell's 2006 musical Hadestown, and Christoph Willibald Gluck's 2022 opera production of Orpheus and Eurydice (Orfeo ed Euridice). I chose three scenes for students to examine and compare/contrast to the myth we had read in class. Lastly, students were required to summarize the differences between the two endings of the myth, explain in their own opinions why the Vergilian/Ovidian ending has been the more popular of the two, and then explain in their own opinions why the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in general has been so popular and reimagined so many times across different time periods and places.

Here are the slides with all the videos/songs and prompts embedded: