Katabasis, meaning literally, “a going down”, is the ancient Greek term for the story of a hero’s descent to the underworld. Etymologically, “katabasis” in ancient Greek could refer to a place from which descents are made, such as a cave mouth, or to a military manoeuvre involving a descent. Both of these etymological senses are relevant to twenty-first century political events, such as the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11, for these events have been narrativised in the media, in documentary accounts, and in subsequent literary fiction as descent journeys from the West into an infernal East (Falconer 2005).
Metaphorically, katabasis (or in Latin, descensus ad inferos) was used by …
Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are not a subscriber, please click here to read about membership. All our articles have been written recently by experts in their field, more than 95% of them university professors.