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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.

Voyages to the otherworld

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Visions. --- Voyages to the otherworld.

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The rich corpus of literary otherworld journeys that has survived from the Scandinavian - and especially the Icelandic - Middle Ages is in many respects tied to a space 'Between the Worlds'. Every otherworld journey quite literally engages with a space 'between the worlds' in the sense that it plays itself out between this world and a world beyond, an otherworld. Yet this is not all. Also in terms of its cultural context this branch of the literature of the medieval North takes up a position situated midway between a broad range of poles. Texts from the Christian period treat pre-Christian mythology; allegedly pre-Christian material is studded with Christian motifs; Scandinavian texts adapt the learning and literature of the European continent, Ireland, and the classical Mediterranean; and Finnish narratives in turn appear to adapt Scandinavian narrative patterns. The volume presents a rich panorama of a broad range of very different - Scandinavian, Finno-Ugric, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Ancient Near Eastern, and archaeological - perspectives on the topic of the 'otherworld journey', which contextualises the motif of the otherworld journey in Old Norse-Icelandic literature in an unprecedented breadth.

Afterlife. --- Jenseits. --- Mythologie. --- Mythology. --- Otherworld. --- Religionsvergleich. --- comparison of religions. --- Afterlife. --- comparison of religions. --- mythology. --- otherworld.

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Sarcophagi, Roman --- Voyages to the otherworld --- Rome --- Antiquities.

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Tundalus --- Visions --- Voyages to the otherworld --- Future life --- Visions in literature. --- Voyages to the otherworld in literature. --- Christian literature, Latin (Medieval and modern)