Myths of the Underworld in Contemporary Culture: The Backward Gaze (Classical Presences)

Myths of the Underworld in Contemporary Culture: The Backward Gaze examines a series of twentieth and twenty-first century fictional works that adapt Greco-Roman myths of the catabasis, the heroic journey to the underworld. Covering a range of genres - including novels, comics, and children's culture, by authors such as Elena Ferrante, Salman Rushdie, Neil Gaiman, A. S. Byatt, Toni Morrison, and Anne Patchett - it reveals how an enduring fascination with life after death, and fantasies of accessing the world of the dead while we are still alive, manifest themselves in myriad and varied re-imaginings of the ancient descent myth. The volume begins with a detailed overview of the use of the myth by ancient authors such as Homer, Aristophanes, Vergil, and Ovid, before exploring the ways in which the narrative of a return trip to Hades by Odysseus, Aeneas, Orpheus, and Persephone can be manipulated by contemporary storytellers to fit themes of social marginality and alterity, postmodern rebellion, the position of female authors in the literary canon, and the dislocation endured by refugees, exiles, and diasporic populations. It also argues that citations of classical underworld stories can disrupt and challenge the literary canon by using media - such as comic books, children's culture, or rock music - not conventionally associated with high culture. Cover 1 Myths of the Underworld in Contemporary Culture: The Backward Gaze 4 Copyright 5 Decication 6 Acknowledgments 8 Contents 10 List of Figures 12 Introduction 14 1: Source Texts 26 The Odyssean Nekyia 28 Heracles and Dionysus 38 The Descent of Aeneas 42 Orpheus and Eurydice 48 Persephone 53 Elements of the Underworld Narrative 57 2: The Ghost of the Father: Spirits of the Postmodern 60 Finding the Way in John Barth’s Underworld 65 The birth of the author 67 The death of the author 72 The Anxiety of Influence in Neil Gaiman’s Underworlds 77 A catabatic cat 83 The mutating underworld 86 Orpheus remastered 91 The postmodern underworld 98 3: Engendering the Haunted Text 100 Mutations and Hauntings: A.S. Byatt’s Angels and Insects 105 Mutations: “Morpho Eugenia” 108 “Things Are Not What They Seem” 110 A hybrid Odyssey 118 Hauntings: “The Conjugial Angel” 120 The postmodern Nekyia 126 Persephone Interrupted: Coraline 127 Coraline transcoded 130 The Doll’s Descent: Searching for Persephone in the Novels of Elena Ferrante 139 The Lost Daughter 142 The Beach at Night 144 Chthonic dolls 145 The dolls’ descent 148 The girls’ descent and the birth of the author 150 Lila: the chthonic woman 153 Persephone redux 155 The author redux 157 Female underworlds 158 4: The Wanderer’s Descent: The Underworlds of Diaspora 160 Ascending from Oblivion in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon 165 Living with the Dead 167 Milkman’s Nekyia 170 Gender and tradition 175 Amy Bloom’s Away: Dreams of Hell 180 The landscape of Demeter 182 Mythic paradeigmata 183 Democratizing the immigrant’s descent 186 On the Outside Looking In: Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet 186 Alternate worlds 190 The exile and the emigré 193 The nomad 196 Disorientation 197 The Ghost of the Father in Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder 198 The intertextual landscape 200 The mentor at the center of a lie 203 Ghosts 205 The underworld inverted 209 The Catabatic Diaspora 210 Epilogue 214 Bibliography 218 Index 232 "Myths of the Underworld in Contemporary Culture: The Backward Gaze' examines a series of twentieth and twenty-first century fictional works that adapt Greco-Roman myths of the catabasis, the heroic journey to the underworld. Covering a range of genres - including novels, comics, and children's culture, by authors such as Elena Ferrante, Salman Rushdie, Neil Gaiman, A. S. Byatt, Toni Morrison, and Anne Patchett - it reveals how an enduring fascination with life after death, and fantasies of accessing the world of the dead while we are still alive, manifest themselves in myriad and varied re-imaginings of the ancient descent myth. The volume begins with a detailed overview of the use of the myth by ancient authors such as Homer, Aristophanes, Vergil, and Ovid, before exploring the ways in which the narrative of a return trip to Hades by Odysseus, Aeneas, Orpheus, and Persephone can be manipulated by contemporary storytellers to fit themes of social marginality and alterity, postmodern rebellion, the position of female authors in the literary canon, and the dislocation endured by refugees, exiles, and diasporic populations. It also argues that citations of classical underworld stories can disrupt and challenge the literary canon by using media - such0as comic books, children's culture, or rock music - not conventionally associated with high culture"--Publisher's description Examining a range of contemporary fictional works that adapt Greco-Roman myths of the descent into the underworld, from novels and comics to children's culture, this volume reveals the ways in which the catabasis narrative can be manipulated by storytellers to reflect upon postmodern culture, feminist critiques, and postcolonial appropriations.