Author Topic: Senior Thesis  (Read 16327 times)

Heradel

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on: January 28, 2009, 09:49:21 PM
See previous thread for context.

First off thanks everybody for their help. I basically thought for a month to find a topic that would work for the requisite few dozen pages and failed until about noon today, when the What Are You Reading thread reminded me about Death in Pratchett, and that led me to think about the various Deaths in literature (Everyman, Sandman, Hellboy, etc.) and Folklore/Mythology (Thanatos, Yama, Shinigami, and the Death in Slavic Mythos that I can't find with any certainty the name of (it's either Nyja, Flins, Peklenc, Marzanna, or something else entirely. I'll be spending time in the NYPL's Humanities research library trying to figure it out, but if someone knows, please say something). So I'm doing a survey of those and then analysis. After some amount of research I'll probably narrow it down to just a couple and come up with a more specific thesis, but for right now I'm going for everybody.

The next few weeks will be research, which means oddly lit rooms in the NYPL, hoping that I can find english translations of sources or that Babelfish will be at least somewhat useful. I know at least one of the texts is in German or Slavic, so that'll be interesting.

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Reply #1 on: January 28, 2009, 10:04:30 PM
I brought up death, so Your Welcome.  ;D



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Reply #2 on: January 28, 2009, 10:26:01 PM
Way cool. Good luck!


Heradel

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Reply #3 on: February 03, 2009, 01:54:21 AM
Thanks!
——————

I'm going to post my (currently spartan) research notes here. Partially because it'll make me update them more and in a better form that I would do for myself, partially because if I make a very large error hopefully someone will notice it. Currently I have them as two files in a Scrivener project, Literature and Folklore (Folklore includes religion), which I will post below.

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Reply #4 on: February 03, 2009, 02:06:30 AM
I'd actually like to read it when you're finished.



Heradel

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Reply #5 on: February 03, 2009, 02:06:59 AM
Folklore:
European
> Greek Mythos: Thanatos — Hesiod’s Theogony: Establishes son of Nyx (darkness) and Erebos(darkness), with twin Hypnos(sleep).  Note: Connection of Sleep and Death.

"And there the children of dark Night have their dwellings, Sleep and Death, awful gods. The glowing Sun never looks upon them with his beams, neither as he goes up into heaven, nor as he comes down from heaven. And the former of them roams peacefully over the earth and the sea's broad back and is kindly to men; but the other has a heart of iron, and his spirit within him is pitiless as bronze: whomsoever of men he has once seized he holds fast: and he is hateful even to the deathless gods." (Hesiod, Theogony 758 ff, trans. Evelyn-White, Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.)
Confirmation by Homer of twin status in Iliad. "Then [Apollon] gave him [Sarpedon] into the charge of swift messengers to carry him, of Hypnos and Thanatos, who are twin brothers, and these two presently laid him down within the rich countryside of broad Lykia." (Homer, Iliad 16. 681 ff)
Other siblings included other negative personifications of archetypes (old age, suffering, doom, deception, etc.).
Atropos — One of the three Moirae. Oldest of the three, chose the mechanism of death and did the cutting with the shears of the mortal threads.
Keres/Ceres — Female death spirits. Whereas Thanatos is peaceful death, they are violent death. Association with Ceberus.
Shield of Heracles (248-57):"The black Dooms gnashing their white teeth, grim-eyed, fierce, bloody, terrifying fought over the men who were dying for they were all longing to drink dark blood. As soon as they caught a man who had fallen or one newly wounded, one of them clasped her great claws around him and his soul went down to Hades, to chilly Tartarus. And when they had satisfied their hearts with human blood, they would throw that one behind them and rush back again into the battle and the tumult."
 Anaplekte — (Quick,Painful Death) (?)
Charon — Navigator of the river Styx

Probably should focus on Thanatos and Charon, but the Fates are also important.


> Norse: Valkiries — “Chooser of the Slain”[1]. Not really a singular death god from what I can tell.

> Slavic folklore (woman in white, green sprout in one hand that caused everlasting sleep — Bad sources, Russian Primary Chronicle: Humanities (5th ave and 42nd st)- General Research- Rm315  Call Number JFF 99-1147)  — Flins (Death), Peklenc (Underworld) Talk page on wikipedia says goddess of death is named Nyja, but no source.
“Marzanna is the personification of death and winter. She is portrayed as an old woman dressed in white. People sought to trick her and thereby prolong their lives.[2]”


————————————————————————
African
> Egyptian: Osiris



————————————————————————

Asian
> India/China/Japan: Yama

> Japan: Shingami



————————————————————————
Americas
> North America:
> Inca:
> Mayan:
> Aztec: Xiutecuhtli “Turquoise Lord” (aka Ixcozauhqui and Huehueteotl “old God” ) God of life after death, warmth in cold, light in darkness and food during famine. Ur-god according to Codex Fejervary-Mayer.
From wikipedia: In Aztec mythology, Mictlan was the lowest (ninth) level of the underworld, located far to the north. Except for warriors who died in battle, people who died when hit by lightning and women who died in childbirth, people went to Mictlan after death. The journey was difficult and took four years, but the dead were aided by the psychopomp, Xolotl.
The king of Mictlan was Mictlantecuhtli. The queen was Mictecacihuatl. Other deities in Mictlan included Cihuacoatl (who commanded Mictlan spirits called Cihuateteo), Acolmiztli, Chalmecacihuilt, Chalmecatl and Acolnahuacatl.
From http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1994/3/94.03.03.x.html#b : The Aztecs believed in a heaven and an underworld. There were thirteen levels of heaven and nine of the underworld. There were also four horizontal points which corresponded to the directions of the compass and were associated with the four creator gods. All beings were assigned to one of these four points, depending on the day one was born. The earth was believed to be a large disc surrounded by water at the point where the horizontal and vertical met. The Lord and Lady of Duality, mentioned earlier also were the rulers of this central point (Bray 1968: 155).
The Aztecs believed that where you went after death depended upon what you did on earth and how you died. The eastern paradise, the “house of the sun” was the home of the souls of warrior who were killed in combat. This also included the souls of enemy warriors who had a special “god of the enemy dead.” Sacrificed victims went there also. It was believed that souls stayed in the eastern paradise for four years, and then they returned to earth as hummingbirds or other exotic birds.
The western paradise, the house of corn, was believed to be for women who died in childbirth. They also returned to earth as phantoms of bad omens. The paradise of Tlaloc, the southern paradise was for people who died of lightening, leprosy or other sickness. This was a place of plentiful food.
The paradise of the north was for the rest of the dead. It was called Mictlan (MEEK tlahn) and getting there involved going through nine trials and took four years to accomplish.
The Aztec accounts of the trials a soul must go through to get to Mictlan are as follows:

1) cross a deep river—dogs were buried with their dead owners to guide them on this journey.
2) pass between two mountains which were joined together
3) climb an obsidian mountain
4) pass through icy wind that cut like a knife
5) pass through a place where flags waved
6) be pierced by arrows
7) pass among wild beasts which ate human hearts
8 ) pass over a narrow path of stone
9) reach this level where the soul found rest.
In order to make this trip, people were buried in a squatting position with items to help them on the way. These included water, the dog (tawny in color) mentioned at the first level of hell, a jade bead to act as the dead’s heart at the seventh hell and other personal objects to give to Mictlantecuhtli (meek tlahn tay COO flee), god of the dead, or Mictecacihuatl (meek tay kah SEE wahtl), mistress of the underworld, when they got to the ninth region.
There were thirteen heavens. Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, the creator gods, lived in the double twelfth and thirteenth heavens. It was believed that the souls of babies went there was well as the souls of men waiting to be reincarnated upon the destruction of the human race (Caso 1958: 64).
Agriculture was the primary focus of the Aztec religion and the forces of water and earth were directly related to agricultural fertility. The Aztecs saw human life metaphorically—like maize or a flower. Man was born to die, but carried the seed of reproduction (Miller and Taube 1993: 31). Therefore, ceremonies dealt with life—not afterlife—to ensure health, fertility and to avoid natural disasters.


————————————————————————
Abrahamic Traditions
> Christianity: Angel of Death
> Judaism:
> Islam: Azrael (?) (raphael)
 Hazrat uzair
Izrah

[1] Orchard, Andy (1997). Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend. Cassell. ISBN 0 304 34520 2 Page 172
[2] http://www.winterscapes.com/slavic.htm
« Last Edit: February 03, 2009, 02:11:48 AM by Heradel »

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Heradel

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Reply #6 on: February 03, 2009, 02:07:39 AM
I'd actually like to read it when you're finished.

It'll be a few months, but I'll post it when it's done.

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Heradel

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Reply #7 on: February 03, 2009, 02:09:10 AM
Literature

> Everyman (morality play)


> The Seventh Seal: Drawn from the Grim Reaper, reminds me a bit of Pratchett's death in his interaction with the knight just back from the crusades. (The scene in Prachett where one of the Witches plays a game against death for a child's life is possibly influenced by the chess game here. )


> Sandman (young female member of the Endless)  — (DC Comics encyclopedia, Mid-Manhattan, two of the Graphic novels requested.
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2005/05/o-hell.asp: “Neil,Thanks for the heads up about the Peter S. Beagle book. I too stumbled onto him as a child, wandering around Lake Tahoe on a vacation with my parents. In a small, quaint, they-don't-make-em'-like-that-anymore bookstore I came across "The Fantasy Worlds of Peter S. Beagle. It not only turned me into a serious reader for life, it made me want to be a writer as well.Beagle is one of those writers who escapes your memory when asked "who are your influences?", but immediatly brings a smile to your face when someone else brings him up. Thanks again for the info, and the smile.-Steve Gomez

That was exactly my thought. I almost never mention Beagle in a list of influences, but I know that Matthew the Raven was a descendant of the raven in A Fine and Private Place, and that the Death in "Come, Lady Death" was definitely somewhere in the back of my mind when I decided that Death had to be a girl...“

> Hellboy


> Discworld (Several novels, Grim Reaper trying to be human, has family)


> Dead Like Me (Recently dead people that have to act as grim reapers) (Have only seen one episode of quite a while back, should probably start soon).


> Come Lady Death (Peter S. Beagle)
« Last Edit: February 03, 2009, 02:14:12 AM by Heradel »

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Reply #8 on: February 03, 2009, 07:21:35 AM
Were you going to examine mainly the Grim Reaper in literature or expand to other representations of Death (e.g. Shinigami, Thanatos).  Some modern urban fantasy/romance novel series (Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark-Hunter/Were-Hunter/Dream-Hunter series) deal with non-Reaper personifications.

I too would like to see your thesis upon completion.  Having been through three of them (so far), I wish you the best of luck with it!

Most that are profound would choose to narrate tales of living men with nouns like sorrow, verbs like lose, and action scenes, and love – but then there are now some, and brave they be, that speak of Lunar cities raised and silver spheres and purple seas, leaving us who listen dazed. -- Irena Foygel


Heradel

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Reply #9 on: February 03, 2009, 08:03:28 AM
Were you going to examine mainly the Grim Reaper in literature or expand to other representations of Death (e.g. Shinigami, Thanatos).  Some modern urban fantasy/romance novel series (Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark-Hunter/Were-Hunter/Dream-Hunter series) deal with non-Reaper personifications.

I too would like to see your thesis upon completion.  Having been through three of them (so far), I wish you the best of luck with it!

Reaper's the one I have the most experience with, and the one that's most often used in Western lit. The other ones will be there, but probably more as contrast unless I find something that really works. I'm probably also going to at least have a diversion down the path of the various journeys that the folklore make the souls go on before their resting place (eg, the Aztec have a multi-year journey to Mictlan). Thanks for the lead on Kenyon, and for the luck.

Thanatos is actually a bit difficult to track down in modern literature — 90%+ of the references are poets being fancy by using that instead of the word death.

Actually, if anyone knows the origin of the grey woman with the white horse that Gaiman uses in the Graveyard Book that would be a help. I'm thinking it might just have been made up, but I'm relatively uncertain.

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Reply #10 on: February 03, 2009, 11:55:36 AM
Thanatos is actually a bit difficult to track down in modern literature — 90%+ of the references are poets being fancy by using that instead of the word death.

Death is actually a pretty uncommon figure in Greek literature.  But you will want to read Euripides' Alcestis, in which he is a character. 

There are also pictorial representations of death from antiquity, most famously the Euphronios krater (google it, it's worth it).  Unfortunately, you're about a year too late, or you could have seen it in person at the Met.  This version is very unlike the Grim Reaper!  You could also look at the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae: the Iconographic Lexicon of Classical Mythology.  (Your university may have a copy; if not, the NYPL should, and NYU and Columbia are guaranteed to.)  Look up under "Thanatos", and you'll find images of death from the Greek and Roman worlds.  (There is also a paired volume listing ancient sources for the figure of Death, but the article might be in French, German, English or maybe Italian.  Even so, you don't have to be able to read it as fake your way through it.)



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Reply #11 on: February 03, 2009, 05:12:17 PM
> Norse: Valkiries — “Chooser of the Slain”. Not really a singular death god from what I can tell.

What about Hel?


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Reply #12 on: February 03, 2009, 05:57:23 PM
You might want to drop Mur a line and ask if she could forward her notes from her Heaven series.  If nothing else, it would be a good checklist.



Poppydragon

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Reply #13 on: February 03, 2009, 06:42:21 PM
Christopher Moore's "A Dirty Job", whilst not perfect has got some interesting ideas in it around the death as a collector of souls.

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Russell Nash

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Reply #14 on: February 03, 2009, 09:53:54 PM
Christopher Moore's "A Dirty Job", whilst not perfect has got some interesting ideas in it around the death as a collector of souls.


B5 did a whole soul collector thing, too.



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Reply #15 on: February 03, 2009, 11:15:10 PM
Thanatos is actually a bit difficult to track down in modern literature — 90%+ of the references are poets being fancy by using that instead of the word death.

Actually, if anyone knows the origin of the grey woman with the white horse that Gaiman uses in the Graveyard Book that would be a help. I'm thinking it might just have been made up, but I'm relatively uncertain.

Thanatos does pop up in Kenyon's work (mostly in Zarek's book, Dance with the Devil), though his depiction does not follow canonical Greek mythology.

As for the grey woman, that reminds me that there was a Prometheus Radio Theatre episode (Episode Four - "The White Lady") with a psychopomp.  (Links available here http://www.prometheusradiotheatre.com/arbiters.php).

Hope some of this helps.   :)

Most that are profound would choose to narrate tales of living men with nouns like sorrow, verbs like lose, and action scenes, and love – but then there are now some, and brave they be, that speak of Lunar cities raised and silver spheres and purple seas, leaving us who listen dazed. -- Irena Foygel


Zathras

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Reply #16 on: February 03, 2009, 11:51:49 PM
There is also Piers Anthony's On a Pale Horse, but I don't know if it fits what you're looking for.



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Reply #17 on: February 04, 2009, 12:31:57 AM
Would the Angel of Death qualify in both Christianity and Judaism? I think of Passover when I think of the Angel of Death.


Heradel

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Reply #18 on: February 04, 2009, 05:41:06 AM
First off, thanks everybody.

Thanatos is actually a bit difficult to track down in modern literature — 90%+ of the references are poets being fancy by using that instead of the word death.

Death is actually a pretty uncommon figure in Greek literature.  But you will want to read Euripides' Alcestis, in which he is a character. 

There are also pictorial representations of death from antiquity, most famously the Euphronios krater (google it, it's worth it).  Unfortunately, you're about a year too late, or you could have seen it in person at the Met.  This version is very unlike the Grim Reaper!  You could also look at the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae: the Iconographic Lexicon of Classical Mythology.  (Your university may have a copy; if not, the NYPL should, and NYU and Columbia are guaranteed to.)  Look up under "Thanatos", and you'll find images of death from the Greek and Roman worlds.  (There is also a paired volume listing ancient sources for the figure of Death, but the article might be in French, German, English or maybe Italian.  Even so, you don't have to be able to read it as fake your way through it.)

I actually did see it at the Met last year before Italy took it back. I'm probably going to end up using at least some pictorial representations in the final document, as most of the South American civilizations had some pretty good ones. Thanks for pointing out the Lexicon, the NYPL has all of it in the RMRR, which I've been working out of.

> Norse: Valkiries — “Chooser of the Slain”. Not really a singular death god from what I can tell.
What about Hel?

I've been doing a bit more research since then, and it's basically complicated. Hel seems a bit christian-flavored, and is in charge of the diseased and old age deaths. Freya gets half the battle deaths, and Odin the other half. Then there's Helgafjell. So yes, complicated.

Christopher Moore's "A Dirty Job", whilst not perfect has got some interesting ideas in it around the death as a collector of souls.
B5 did a whole soul collector thing, too.

I was thinking about bringing those guys into it. They're one of the more interesting science fiction Deaths. I'll look into "A Dirty Job" as well.

And I've got an early class, so sleep takes me now and I'll be back to work on this again tomorrow. Again, thanks everybody.

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Reply #19 on: February 04, 2009, 06:26:30 PM
how bout Cthulu? :)

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Reply #20 on: February 05, 2009, 12:17:58 AM
Don't forget the Mayan Ah Puch, who appears (well, actually, appears is not quite right.  Informs?) in various works by William S. Burroughs as Ah Pook, The Destroyer.

"Wait.  Wait.  Time.  A landing field.  Death needs Time for what it kills to grow in, for Ah Pook's sweet sake!"




Heradel

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Reply #21 on: February 25, 2009, 06:48:02 AM
More of an update tomorrow or Thursday, but I just wanted to say that Dead Like Me has a surprising number of Sci Fi genre actors before they got big.

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