Navigating Liminal Spaces: A Rediscovery of Meredith's "the Day of the Daughter of Hades" (Critical Essay‪)‬

George Meredith's "The Day of the Daughter of Hades" (1883) is both over-looked and under-appreciated by modern scholars. Often classified as one of Meredith's nature poems, "The Day of the Daughter of Hades" was introduced in Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth (1883) and remains, to some extent, defined by the abounding nature motifs throughout the collection. But this poem should not be lost within those nature poems, nor should it be considered an afterthought to Meredith's more canonical non-nature poetry, such as "Modern Love." "The Day of the Daughter of Hades" offers a complicated study of Meredithian philosophies on humanity, nature, and the places where these two systems intersect. This poem must be examined for its extremely ambitious use of space, landscape, and variations of lightness and darkness to explore its clashing patriarchal and matriarchal hierarchies. Exploring "The Day of the Daughter of Hades" in terms of its own poetic and literary constructions reveals the unresolved tensions and wide-ranging vision employed throughout Meredith's salient poem. This poem has received, at best, half-hearted attentions from nineteenth-century and modern critics, and I would argue that critical silence on this poem is due to Meredith's complicated relegation of femininity and matriarchal lineage to the habitation of liminal spaces. An analysis of the three central female figures--Demeter, Persephone, and Skiageneia, the daughter of Hades and Persephone--reveals the ways in which Meredith creates a matrilineal legacy overshadowed by an oppressive patriarchal Underworld. In addition to this, a study of Skiageneia's connection to Callistes, the mortal man who is privy to the powerful events during Skiageneia's day upon the earth, and the power of his voracious gaze further complicates her space within this poem. Callistes's gaze and, later, his words, establish a voyeuristic power over Skiageneia that limits her personal agency and casts a shadow on her day of freedom. Callistes's power to affect Skiageneia aligns him with another male of great strength, Hades, who also controls Skiageneia's fate within the poem. Meredith's tense, but achingly beautiful, portrayal of Skiageneia's problematic matrilineal inheritance and her close interaction with men who hold power over her physical and emotional being reveals a woman forced to maneuver within seemingly overwhelming obstacles while trying to maintain some sense of self.