【古典学新书】今生 / 来世：从荷马到琉善的古希腊冥界革命与反思

Life / Afterlife

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

Suzanne Lye

Explores one-thousand years of ancient Greek Underworld scenes in Greek literature and art

Provides tools for interpreting both ancient and modern Underworld scenes and uses an audience-centered approach

Combines theories of intertextuality from literary criticism and web design from computer science

Description

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.

Table of Contents

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

Author Information

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

Reviews and Awards

"Lye's hypertextual approach provides rich insights into Underworld scenes in Greek literature, deftly combining innovative theoretical methodology with careful close readings of particular scenes. She shows how authors create meaning in conjunction with their readers by crafting their accounts to enable links with the traditional elements of Underworld scenes, making a nexus with other tellings familiar to their audiences. Specialists and students alike will benefit from this excellent study." -- Radcliffe Edmonds, Bryn Mawr College

"This is an ambitious study that discusses the Underworld as a theme across different times, genres, and media. It successfully challenges earlier readings that only focus on specific scenes and invites a comprehensive reading of the Underworld scenes in their evolving and interconnected presence in the ancient Greek tradition. It makes us look at texts and visual scenes in 'partnership' with the audiences and viewers who shaped them, tracing the Underworld landscape as a productive imaginary to think with." -- Andromache Karanika, University of California, Irvine

Hardcover

This item is not yet published. It is available for pre-orders and will ship on 09 September 2024.

336 Pages

6 1/8 x 9 1/4 inches

ISBN: 9780197690208

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/life--afterlife-9780197690208?cc=us&lang=en&