Scherer, Madeleine (2018) A global schema: the Graeco-Roman underworld in Ireland and the Caribbean. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

‘A Global Schema: The Graeco-Roman Underworld in Ireland and the Caribbean’ is an investigation of the complex and multifaceted relationships that postcolonial writers in Ireland and the Caribbean establish with classical antiquity. Acknowledging the thorough classical education system writers like Derek Walcott, Michael Longley, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, and Wilson Harris were part of, I place my primary focus on the ways in which these writers position themselves in relation to the classics in their creative work. In my dissertation, I use an investigation of these writers’ refigurations of the underworld myth as a basis to argue that it is specifically mnemonic connections that these writers form with antiquity. The connections they form are not defined by a ‘filial’ relationship with a canonical, European tradition that was forcibly introduced into their countries and that might be seen as evidence of ‘anxiety of influence’ on their part. Instead, these writers charter their own, self-determined ‘frail connections’ to antiquity, as Emily Greenwood might phrase it, as they explore the complicated relationships between an increasingly globalised version of antiquity – which they adapt and refigure in their writing – and their own, modern context.

This dissertation locates itself in the fields of classical reception, memory studies, critical theory, postcolonial literature, and world literature. It seeks to use the vocabulary and methodologies of memory studies to re-conceptualise the ways in which classical receptionists have understood postcolonial uses of the classics. I propose that the classics have taken on the role of travelling schemata, whereby connotations of ancient images, characters, and narratives have been assimilated into a transcultural mnemonic imagination and are then adapted into a variety of different cultures and contexts. Through this project I hope to show how much both the concerns and methods of classical reception, memory studies and postcolonial literature overlap.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PA Classical philology P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0080 Criticism
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Voyages to the otherworld in literature, Postcolonialism -- Ireland, Postcolonialism -- Caribbean Area, Caribbean literature -- Classical influences, Irish literature -- Classical influences, Memory in literature
Official Date:	September 2018
Dates:	Date Event September 2018 UNSPECIFIED
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Barry, Elizabeth, 1972- ; Gilmore, John, 1956-
Format of File:	pdf
Extent:	viii, 300 leaves
Language:	eng

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