Life / Afterlife

Revolution and Reflection in the Ancient Greek Underworld from Homer to Lucian

Suzanne Lye (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

336 Seiten

2024
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-769020-8 (ISBN)

Lieferbar (Termin unbekannt)
Versandkostenfrei
Auch auf Rechnung

Artikel merken

Life / Afterlife traces the development, evolution, and uses of underworld scenes in ancient Greek literature and society. Underworld scenes are a unique form of embedded storytelling, appearing across time and genres. These scenes employ a special register of language that acts as a narrative space outside of chronological time and everyday reality. Suzanne Lye shows how writers such as Homer, Hesiod, Aristophanes, Plato, and Lucian, among others, used afterlife depictions as commentaries to communicate a call to action for their audiences in response to cultural, religious, and political changes to their worlds. Using networks of underworld scenes which often featured mythic and historical figures, authors could reinforce or challenge traditional religious and cultural beliefs and practices by presenting the long-term, cosmic effects of actions in life on an individual's post-death experience.
From ancient to modern times, underworld scenes have helped authors and audiences define the essential qualities of a "good life" for different social, political, and religious groups and their societies. This book offers an approach to reading underworld scenes that explains how they function and why they have persisted in various forms, both literary and artistic, from the eighth-century B.C.E. to the present day.

Suzanne Lye is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acknowledgments
Note on Texts, Translations, and Transliterations
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Synoptic Underworld: Overview of a Narrative Construct
Chapter 2. Afterlife Poetics and Homer's Heroic Underworlds
Chapter 3. Becoming Blessed and Underworlds of Judgment
Chapter 4. Crafting Heroic Blessedness through Underworld Scenes
Chapter 5. World and Underworld: Democratizing the Afterlife through Underworld Scenes
Chapter 6. Plato's Underworlds: Revising the Afterlife
Chapter 7. Epilogue: The Afterlife of the Afterlife

Erscheinungsdatum	11.09.2024
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	165 x 249 mm
Gewicht	635 g
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Klassiker / Moderne Klassiker
	Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Dramatik / Theater
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Altertum / Antike
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Religionsgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Weitere Religionen
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	0-19-769020-3 / 0197690203
ISBN-13	978-0-19-769020-8 / 9780197690208
Zustand	Neuware