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Myths of the Underworld in Contemporary Culture by Judith Fletcher Pdf
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.
Myths of the Underworld in Contemporary Culture by Judith Fletcher Pdf
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.
Author : Evans Lansing Smith Publisher : Modern American Literature Page : 0 pages File Size : 43,9 Mb Release : 2012 Category : Gnosticism in literature ISBN : 1433120275
Thomas Pynchon and the Postmodern Mythology of the Underworld by Evans Lansing Smith Pdf
Thomas Pynchon and the Postmodern Mythology of the Underworld is devoted to the work of one of the most highly acclaimed writers of the post-World War II period of American literature, Thomas Pynchon. Through close readings and broad amplification, this book illustrates that the descent to the underworld is the single most important myth in Pynchon's work, conferring shape and significance upon each of his novels. This book also offers a unique perspective on postmodernism, which is characterized by ludic syncretism - the playful synthesis of myths from a variety of cultures. In addition, Thomas Pynchon and the Postmodern Mythology of the Underworld is a major contribution to the study of myth and literature as a whole, through the definition of what Evans Lansing Smith calls necrotypes - archetypal images catalyzed by the mythology of the underworld. This book employs an interdisciplinary methodology that will be of critical interest to scholars of comparative literature, mythology, and religion; to theorists and critics of modernism and postmodernism; to depth psychologists in the traditions of Jung, Freud, and James Hillman; as well as to the broad base of Pynchon enthusiasts and exponents of popular culture.
Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo has dazzled and challenged audiences with its unique aesthetic design and startling plot devices since its release in 1958. In Classical Vertigo: Mythic Shapes and Contemporary Influences in Hitchcock’s Film, Mark William Padilla analyzes antecedents including: (1) the film’s source novel, D’entre les morts (Among the Dead), (2) the earlier symbolist novel, Rodenbach’s Bruges-la-morte, and (3) the first-draft screenplay of Maxwell Anderson, a prominent Broadway dramatist and Hollywood scenarist from the 1920s to the 1950s. The presence of Vertigo amid these texts reveals and clarifies how themes from Greco-Roman antiquity emerge in Hitchcock’s project. Padilla analyzes narrative figures such as Prometheus and Pandora, Persephone and Hades, and Pygmalion and Galatea, as well as themes like the dark plots of Greek tragedy, to reveal how Hitchcock used allusive form to construct an emotionally powerful experience with an often-minimalist script. This analysis demonstrates that Vertigo is a multifaceted work of intertextuality with artistic and cultural roots extending into antiquity itself.
Dream Tonight of Peacock Tails by Umberto Rossi,Paolo Simonetti Pdf
Dream Tonight of Peacock Tails marks the first in-depth examination of Pynchon’s debut novel, which was immediately recognized as a breakthrough masterpiece. The eight essays collected in the volume provide both scholars and avid readers with new and original insights into a too-often underestimated work that, probably even more than Gravity’s Rainbow, established Pynchon as one of the great masters of twentieth-century American literature. This book deliberately privileges a multidisciplinary and transnational approach, encompassing collaborations from a particularly international and diverse academic context. As such, this volume offers a multifaceted pattern of expanding investigation that tackles the novel’s apparently chaotic but meticulously organized structure by rereading it in the light of recent US and European history and economics, as well as by exploring its many real and imagined locations. Not only are the essays brought together here revelatory of Pynchon’s way of working, but they also tell us something about our own ways of approaching his fiction.
Immerse yourself in stories of gods and goddesses of the underworld and explore how themes of death, love, and revenge are depicted in folklore and mythology by different cultures around the world. Myths of the Underworld is a vibrant collection of ten retellings of forbidden love, acts of vengeance, and naive attractions. Modernized for today’s reader, these diverse stories span time and space. But while the cultures and traditions are varied, the themes woven throughout these tales reveal how the struggle to understand and accept death and all that comes with it is one that is quintessentially human. The ten different stories include: Hades and Persephone, the classic myth from Ancient Greece Kali, the Indian goddess (and wife of Shiva), known for her fierceness on the battlefield Anubis, the ancient Egyptian god of the underworld Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacíhuatl, the lovers who ruled the Aztec underworld The Shinigami, Japanese spirits of the underworld Maman Brigitte, the Haitian intermediary of death Gamab, the Namibian god of fate who gifted rain to mankind Hel, the Norse overseer of the underworld Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the sea and the underworld The Sand Hills, the home of the dead for the Blackfeet Nation The tales in Myths of the Underworld are sure to captivate and enchant readers. Perfect for fans of mythology, romance, and fairy tales.
Monumental epic poem tells the heroic story of Aeneas, a Trojan who escaped the burning ruins of Troy to found Lavinium, the parent city of Rome, in the west.
The Goddess Myth in Contemporary Literature and Popular Culture by Mary J. Magoulick Pdf
Honorable Mention for the 2022 Elli Köngäs-Maranda Prize awarded by the Women's Section of the American Folklore Society Goddess characters are revered as feminist heroes in the popular media of many cultures. However, these goddess characters often prove to be less promising and more regressive than most people initially perceive. Goddesses in film, television, and fiction project worldviews and messages that reflect mostly patriarchal culture (included essentialized gender assumptions), in contrast to the feminist, empowering levels many fans and critics observe. Building on critiques of other skeptical scholars, this feminist, folkloristic approach deepens how our remythologizing of the ancient past reflects a contemporary worldview and rhetoric. Structures of contemporary goddess myths often fit typical extremes as either vilified, destructive, dark, and chaotic (typical in film or television); or romanticized, positive, even utopian (typical in women’s speculative fiction). This goddess spectrum persistently essentializes gender, stereotyping women as emotional, intuitive, sexual, motherly beings (good or bad), precluded from complex potential and fuller natures. Within apparent good-over-evil, pop-culture narrative frames, these goddesses all suffer significantly. However, a few recent intersectional writers, like N. K. Jemisin, break through these dark reflections of contemporary power dynamics to offer complex characters who evince “hopepunk.” They resist typical simplified, reductionist absolutes to offer messages that resonate with potential for today’s world. Mythic narratives featuring goddesses often do, but need not, serve merely as ideological mirrors of our culture’s still problematically reductionist approach to women and all humanity.
Delve into the depths of mythology and mystery with "Echoes of the Underworld" by Skye Hellviolet. This captivating book takes readers on a journey through ancient legends, modern interpretations, and the timeless symbolism of the underworld archetype. From the ancient myths of Greece and Egypt to the contemporary tales of fantasy and science fiction, "Echoes of the Underworld" explores the universal themes and archetypes that have captivated human imagination for centuries. Through vivid storytelling and insightful analysis, Skye Hellviolet sheds light on the hidden truths and deeper meanings behind these timeless tales, inviting readers to uncover the mysteries of the human psyche and the collective unconscious. With a blend of scholarship and creativity, "Echoes of the Underworld" offers a fresh perspective on familiar stories and introduces readers to lesser-known myths and legends from cultures around the world. Drawing on her background in literature and psychology, Skye Hellviolet delves into the symbolism of the underworld archetype, exploring its relevance to contemporary culture, spirituality, and personal growth. Whether you're a lover of mythology, a seeker of wisdom, or simply someone who enjoys a good story, "Echoes of the Underworld" is sure to captivate and inspire. Journey into the depths of the human psyche and discover the echoes of the underworld that resonate within us all.
Psychoanalysis, Philosophy and Myth in Contemporary Culture by Angie Voela Pdf
This book examines the use of myth in contemporary popular and high culture, and proposes that the aporetic subject, the individual that ‘does not know’, is the ideal contemporary subject. Using several contemporary novels, films and theatrical plays that illustrate aporia – such as Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (Riordan, 2007), Tron Legacy (Koninski, 2010), Welcome to Thebes (Buffini, 2010), The Photographers (Koundouros, 1998), Prometheus (2012) and Prometheus Retrogressing (Sfikas, 1998) – Angie Voela introduces common ground between Lacanian psychoanalysis and some of Freud’s most ardent critics, Michel Foucault and Jean Baudrillard, as well as the cultural philosopher Bernard Stiegler. These unprecedented systematic comparisons broaden the scope and impact of Lacanian psychoanalysis in inter-disciplinary debates of philosophy and culture and Voela argues that apart from dealing with the past, psychoanalysis must also deal more explicitly with the present and the future. She presents a unique inquiry into modern subjectivity that will be of great interest to scholars of psychoanalysis, philosophy, film, literature and contemporary culture.
This book, written by Andrew Lang, on the study of modern mythology is a captivating exploration of the ways in which myths are created in the wake of significant events. He discusses the process of mythmaking, examining how the stories and symbols that emerge out of a time of upheaval or trauma can shape our understanding of the world and provide a powerful source of meaning and connection.
Homer and the Poetics of Hades by George Alexander Gazis Pdf
This book examines Homer's use of Hades as a poetic resource. By portraying Hades as a realm where vision is not possible, Homer creates a unique poetic environment where social constraints and divine prohibitions are not applicable. The resulting narrative emulates that of the Muses but is markedly distinct from it, as in Hades experimentation with and alteration of epic forms and values can be pursued, giving rise to a 'poetics of Hades'. In the Iliad, Homer shows how this alternative poetics works through the visit of Patroclus' shade in Achilles' dream. The recollection offered by the shade reveals an approach to its past in which regret, self-pity, and a lingering memory of intimate and emotional moments displace an objective tone and a traditional exposition of heroic values. The potential of Hades for providing alternative means of commemorating the past is more fully explored in the 'Nekyia' of Odyssey 11; there, Odysseus' extraordinary ability to see (idein) the dead in Hades allows him to meet and interview the shades of heroines and heroes of the epic past. The absolute confinement of Hades allows the shades to recount their stories from their own viewpoint. The poetic implications of this are important since by visiting Hades and hearing the shades' stories, Odysseus-and Homer--gains access to a tradition in which epic values associated with gender roles and even divine law are suspended in favour of a more immediate and personally inflected approach to the epic past. -- Prové de l'editorial.
Mythology in Our Midst by Amy T. Peterson,David J. Dunworth Pdf
Though nearly everyone is familiar with such great mythological figures as Hercules, Icarus, and Medusa, one may wonder what relevance these ancient characters, and their stories, hold for modern readers. This unique reference book brings mythology to life for students by exploring the connections between ancient myths and contemporary culture. An introductory essay sets the tone with its overview of the myriad areas of human endeavors—including the arts, science, psychology, language and literature, consumer products, and other aspects of popular culture—that mythology has influenced. The user-friendly volume is comprised of 50 narrative essays that trace the cultural connections and offer a lively retelling of each myth. For example, readers will discover the derivation of Freudian psychoanalysis from the myth of Oedipus, and fans of popular film and fiction may be surprised to learn the mythological inspirations for works like Beauty and the Beast, The Matrix, or Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead. This engrossing book is enhanced with 25 original illustrations. Five fact-filled appendices offer glossaries and interesting mythological etymologies of commonplace words in nature, science, and everyday consumer products like Nike shoes and Olympus cameras. Whether for research or pure enjoyment, this accessible and informative book reveals the many unrecognized references to mythology that impact our lives.
"Greek Myths" takes readers on a captivating journey into the ancient realm of Greek mythology, where gods, goddesses, heroes, and mythical creatures come to life. Delve into the rich tapestry of stories that have fascinated and inspired generations throughout history. Discover the creation myths that unveil the birth of the gods and the universe, and explore the mighty Olympian deities' divine dominion over the cosmos. Unravel the epic tales of heroic figures like Heracles, Perseus, and Odysseus as they embark on extraordinary quests and face daunting challenges. Witness the timeless tragedies of love and loss, as well as the poignant stories of transformations and metamorphoses that shaped the ancient Greek worldview. Immerse yourself in the legendary Trojan War, where legendary warriors clashed, and the fateful city of Troy faced its ultimate fate. Descend into the mysterious Underworld, ruled by the enigmatic Hades, and learn about the judgment of souls in the afterlife. Uncover the symbolic meanings and allegorical interpretations hidden within these ancient myths, offering profound insights into the human psyche. From the heights of Mount Olympus to the depths of the Underworld, "Greek Myths" presents a comprehensive exploration of the cultural impact of these enduring tales. Engage with the profound influence of Greek mythology on art, literature, and modern popular culture. Written with clarity and scholarly depth, this book is an indispensable resource for both mythology enthusiasts and newcomers seeking to unravel the timeless tales that continue to shape our understanding of the human condition. Embark on an extraordinary adventure into the heart of Greek myths, where gods and mortals intertwine in a tapestry of awe-inspiring narratives.