Ancient Greek Myth in World Fiction since 1989

Description

Ancient Greek Myth in World Fiction since 1989 explores the diverse ways that contemporary world fiction has engaged with ancient Greek myth. Whether as a framing device, or a filter, or via resonances and parallels, Greek myth has proven fruitful for many writers of fiction since the end of the Cold War. This volume examines the varied ways that writers from around the world have turned to classical antiquity to articulate their own contemporary concerns. Featuring contributions by an international group of scholars from a number of disciplines, the volume offers a cutting-edge, interdisciplinary approach to contemporary literature from around the world. Analysing a range of significant authors and works, not usually brought together in one place, the book introduces readers to some less-familiar fiction, while demonstrating the central place that classical literature can claim in the global literary curriculum of the third millennium. The modern fiction covered is as varied as the acclaimed North American television series The Wire, contemporary Arab fiction, the Japanese novels of Haruki Murakami and the works of New Zealand’s foremost Maori writer, Witi Ihimaera. This book explores the diverse ways that ancient Greek myth has been used in fiction internationally since 1989. Whether as a framing device, or a filter, or via resonances and parallels, Greek myth has proven fruitful for many writers of fiction since the end of the Cold War. Yet their engagement with it has been by no means homogeneous, and this volume examines the varied ways that writers from around the world have turned to classical antiquity to articulate their own contemporary concerns. While Greek myth and literature were key constituents in nineteenth-century realist and early twentieth-century modernist fiction, they faded in significance mid-century, at a time when V.S. Pritchett warned that the novel as a form would be inadequate to the cultural ‘processing’ of recent atrocities. However, the creative energies released by the end of the Cold War, the rise of the postcolonial novel, and the terrible recent conflicts in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa, which the collapse of the Soviet Union helped to engender, contributed to a remarkable renaissance of significant fiction which engaged once more with the Greeks. By drawing out this dimension, the volume challenges the conventional categorisation of works of fiction according to national tradition, even while the geographical range of the book includes works by Brazilian, French, German, Japanese, Indian, North American, Maori, African, Russian, Greek, Irish, and Arabic writers. Cover page Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Contents Acknowledgements Contributors Introduction Justine McConnell Bibliography 1 From Anthropophagy to Allegory and Back: A Study of Classical Myth and the Brazilian Novel Patrice Rankine Historical Background: The Brazilian Military Dictatorship and 1989 Classical Myth as Allegory for Cultural Expression in Brazilian Literature before 1989: The Centaur in the Garden Brazilian Novels after 1989: Hotel Atlantico (1989) The War of the Saints (1993) The Discovery of America by the Turks (1994) Bibliography 2 Ibrahim Al-Koni’s Lost Oasis as Atlantis and His Demon as Typhon William M. Hutchins Tanit as Athena Waw as Atlantis The Sahara as a Labyrinth Wantahet as Typhon Ibrahim al-Koni as Odysseus/Ulysses Conclusion Bibliography 3 Greek Myth and Mythmaking in Witi Ihimaera’s The Matriarch (1986) and The Dream Swimmer (1997) Simon Perris Bibliography 4 War, Religion and Tragedy: The Revolt of the Muckers in Luiz Antonio de Assis Brasil’s Videiras de Cristal Sofia Frade Bibliography 5 Translating Myths, Translating Fictions Lorna Hardwick Crisis, Critical Distance and Transition Literature Zakes Mda, Ways of Dying (1995) Christa Wolf, Medea: Stimmen (1986) Wolf ’s Engagement with Greek Myth – from Cassandra to Medea Text, Myth and Variation in Antiquity and in Wolf Coda Bibliography 6 Echoes of Ancient Greek Myths in Murakami Haruki’s novels and in Other Works of Contemporary Japanese Literature Giorgio Amitrano Bibliography 7 ‘It’s All in the Game’: Greek Myth and The Wire Adam Ganz Bibliography 8 Writing a New Irish Odyssey: Theresa Kishkan’s A Man in a Distant Field Fiona Macintosh Translating the Odyssey The Irish Literary Revival and Comparatism An Irish Odyssey Bibliography 9 The Minotaur on the Russian Internet: Victor Pelevin’s Helmet of Horror Anna Ljunggren Topos Dematerialized Characters The Helmet of the Minotaur Helmet, Mask and Internet-Carnival Solving the Puzzle: The Carnival Group Instead of the Character Bibliography 10 Diagnosis: Overdose. Status: Critical. Odysseys in Bernhard Schlink’s Die Heimkehr Sebastian Matzner The Inset Narrative The Inset Political Theory of de Baur The Narrative: Plot Progression Through Role Reversals The Narrator: Self-stylization Framing Intrafictional Interpretation: Personal Relationships and National History Bibliography 11 Narcissus and the Furies: Myth and Docufiction in Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones Edith Hall Bibliography 12 Philhellenic Imperialism and the Invention of the Classical Past: Twenty-first Century Re-imaginings of Odysseus in the Greek War for Independence Efrossini Spentzou Bibliography 13 The ‘Poem of Force’ in Australia: David Malouf, Ransom and Chloe Hooper, The Tall Man Margaret Reynolds Episode from an Early War Ransom The Poem of Force The Tall Man Bibliography 14 Young Female Heroes from Sophocles to the Twenty-First Century Helen Eastman Bibliography 15 Generation Telemachus: Dinaw Mengestu’s How to Read the Air Justine McConnell Bibliography Notes Index