Passage through Hell: Modernist Descents, Medieval Underworlds

David L. Pike

Published by Cornell University Press 1997

Passage through Hell

Modernist Descents, Medieval Underworlds

David L. Pike

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501729478

Overview
Contents

About this book

Taking the culturally resonant motif of the descent to the underworld as his guiding thread, David L. Pike traces the interplay between myth and history in medieval and modernist literature. Passage through Hell suggests new approaches to the practice...

Author / Editor information

David L. Pike is Professor of Literature at American University. He is the author of Subterranean Cities: The World beneath Paris and London, 1800-1945 and Passage through Hell: Modernist Descents, Medieval Underworlds (winner of the Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities), both from Cornell.

Reviews

This dense, extensively researched, and intellectually challenging project will hold very different sorts of appeal for different kinds of readers. To my mind, the book's great strength lies in the rich tapestries of literary history it weaves together in telling detail about each author treated, revealing aspects of the myth of the descensus ad inferos that have been decisive for modern as well as for medieval versions of the myth. Pike's configurations of authors in strategic relations to one another are fascinating and give very new and provocative insights into key modernist writers and their relations to the medieval past that they construct.

This book constitutes a major achievement and veritable comparative tour de force; it will provide much methodological stimulation, and it offers many a new insight into the authors and texts selected for scrutiny.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface David L. Pike Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
1. The Persistence of the Universal: Critical Descents into Antiquity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. "La Bataille du Styx": Céline's Allegory of Conversion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
3. The Conversion of Dante Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	62
4. The Gender of Descent Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
5. The Representation of Hell: Benjamin's Descent into the City of Light Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
6. The Descent into History, or Beyond a Modernism of Reading: Heaney and Walcott Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	248
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	281

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 320
Keywords: Medieval & Renaissance Studies

eBook

Published: September 5, 2018
ISBN: 9781501729478