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.

• Frontmatter


• List of Figures


• 0: Introduction


• 1: Source Texts


• 1.1: The Odyssean Nekyia


• 1.2: Heracles and Dionysus


• 1.3: The Descent of Aeneas


• 1.4: Orpheus and Eurydice


• 1.5: Persephone


• 1.6: Elements of the Underworld Narrative


• 2: The Ghost of the Father: Spirits of the Postmodern


• 2.1: Finding the Way in John Barth's Underworld


• 2.2: The Anxiety of Influence in Neil Gaiman's Underworlds


• 3:  Engendering the Haunted Text


• 3.1: Mutations and Hauntings: A.S. Byatt's Angels and Insects


• 3.2: Mutations: "Morpho Eugenia"


• 3.3: Hauntings: "The Conjugial Angel"


• 3.4: Persephone Interrupted: Coraline


• 3.5: The Doll's Descent: Searching for Persephone in the Novels of Elena Ferrante


• 4: The Wanderer's Descent: The Underworlds of Diaspora


• 4.1: Ascending from Oblivion in Song of Solomon


• 4.2: Away: Dreams of Hell


• 4.3: On the Outside Looking In: The Ground Beneath Her Feet


• 4.4: The Ghost of the Father in State of Wonder


• 4.5: The Catabatic Diaspora


• 5: Epilogue


• Endmatter


• Bibliography


• Index

Judith Fletcher holds a Ph.D. in Ancient Greek from Bryn Mawr College, and is Professor of History and Ancient Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. In addition to numerous articles on Greek poetry and drama, she is the author of Performing Oaths in Classical Greek Drama (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and co-editor (with Alan H. Sommerstein) of Horkos: The Oath in Greek Society (Liverpool University Press, 2007) and (with Bonnie MacLachlan) of Virginity Revisited: Configurations of the Unpossessed Body (University of Toronto Press, 2007).