Honors Bachelor of Arts
Document Type
Capstone/Thesis
Faculty Advisor
Course Director: Dr. Shannon Byrne
Date
2014-02-14
Abstract
This paper will provide a comprehensive account of the afterlife in modern literature and then a more in-depth analysis of how the near-death experience transforms those who have them in modern accounts. For my modern sources I will be examining Todd Burpo’s non-fiction New York Times Best Seller Heaven is for Real, Dr. Eben Alexander’s non-fiction New York Times Best Seller Proof of Heaven and the BBC’s documentary entitled “The Day I Died,” produced by Kate Broome. I will give the same comprehensive examination of the Underworld in classical literature and then continue to give a deeper analysis of how the near-death experiences transform the classical heroes who experience them. In order to do so, I will look at Homer’s Odyssey, Bacchylides’ Ode 5, Aristophanes’ Frogs, Plato’s Myth of Er, Virgil’s Georgics and Aeneid, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I have chosen these modern and classical sources because they are representative of views on the afterlife in the times that produced them. Through this analysis I hope to show that the transformative power of near-death experiences is universally acknowledged, transcending the boundaries of not only time but also of genre. In addition, I hope to show the importance of the wide reaching ability of these sources to give their audiences a way to talk and think about the inevitable human encounter with Death.
Recommended Citation
Farkas, John M., "Twice-Made Men: The Journey to the Afterlife and Back" (2014). Honors Bachelor of Arts. 25.
https://www.exhibit.xavier.edu/hab/25
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Included in
Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, Ancient Philosophy Commons, Classical Archaeology and Art History Commons, Classical Literature and Philology Commons, Other Classics Commons
