Notes on Afterlife Myth PDF

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Module 3 notes on Afterlife myth...

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Notes on Afterlife Myth (DON’T MISS HEADING FIVE!) 



A.

Nekuia (literally, “story of a corpse”) means “story of a trip to the land

of the dead 



 B.

The place Odysseus goes is definitely called the “underworld,” but he

sails (i.e., travels horizontally) to get there 



 





A.

Eschatology means “the study of furthest things”—that is, limits

B.

Much of the mythic geography of the underworld has to do with limits 

C.

!

Compare the way the Christian tradition views the afterlife, and its

relation to the end of time 

"

#$%  &

'

(





A.

We’re in great danger of importing our own, Western monotheistic,

notions about the afterlife into the Ancient Greek context where they don’t belong 



)* &

+

 B.

The judges of the underworld, Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Aeacus, are

originally there not to decide who gets punished for what they did in life, but to settle disputes among the dead C.

The “famous sinners” whom Odysseus sees in the underworld are very

notable EXCEPTIONS to what happens to regular people, and they’re where they are because the gods put them there for very particular bad things they did





A.

The Greek word for soul, psyche, is connected to words for cold 



 B.

The words describing the underworld in the Odyssey have to do with rot

and decay 

$,

- 





A.

Greek burial ritual involved precise steps 

.

&



/

 a)

Why? To feed the dead—very different from sacrifices to the

Olympians

B.

On the basis of burial ritual, in exactly the time we’re most interested in,

when our most important myths come into being in the epic tradition, HEROCULT arises 

*0

  &



 /



123 45( C.

A heros is not a superhero 



&



6'2  /

787

8

9

:2

.

;

a)

Olympian—the gods

b)

Chthonic (from Gr. khthon “earth”)—the heroes

%,78-

,78...