The poet and the underworld: metaliterary katabasis in Eavan Boland's 'The Journey', Derek Walcott's Omeros, and Gloria Naylor's Linden Hills

Feuth, A.G.B.M. (2022)

Doctoral Thesis

This thesis compares the uses of the classical underworld descent, or katabasis, in three contemporary English-language authors, women and/or Black writers, as an instrument to express their poetics. It focuses on one central text from each author, contextualizing its use of katabasis within the author's larger oeuvre. For this analysis, use has been made of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and cognitive theory of allegory, theories of metaliterature and intertextuality, and transgeneric narratology. Katabasis has proven to hold a central position in the oeuvre of all three authors, albeit in very different ways. In the work of Boland and Naylor, the motif is omni-present. Boland maps katabasis onto the moment of poetic creativity, in which access to the female underworld is attempted, but nevertheless remains barred. Naylor's work combines the various regions of Dante's afterlife with western esotericism, offering a somewhat happier prospect for women and writing. For Walcott, on the other hand, katabasis is omni-present in his magnum opus Omeros only, and is applied as a final reckoning with his literary critics. Thus, for all three authors katabasis has proven to be used as an instrument to appropriate the western literary canon and to define their poetics.

• Classical Receptions
• Intertextuality
• English literature
• Classics
• Nachleben
• Conceptual Metaphor Theory
• Metaliterature
• Transgeneric narratology

• All authors: Feuth, A.G.B.M.
• Supervisor: Liebregts, P.T.M.G.; Wessels, A.B.
• Committee: Corporaal, M.C.M.; Greenwood, E.; Jonge, C.C. de; Depourcq, M.J.G.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS), Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University
• Date: 2022-01-13
• Sponsorship: NWO