Stories of ghostly spirits who return to this world to warn of
danger, to prophesy, to take revenge, to request proper burial, or
to comfort the living fascinated people in ancient times just as
they do today. In this innovative, interdisciplinary study, the
author combines a modern folkloric perspective with literary
analysis of ghost stories from classical antiquity to shed new
light on the stories' folk roots.
The author begins by examining ancient Greek and Roman beliefs
about death and the departed and the various kinds of ghost stories
which arose from these beliefs. She then focuses on the longer
stories of Plautus, Pliny, and Lucian, which concern haunted
houses. Her analysis illuminates the oral and literary transmission
and adaptation of folkloric motifs and the development of the ghost
story as a literary form. In her concluding chapter, the author
also traces the influence of ancient ghost stories on modern ghost
story writers, a topic that will interest all readers and scholars
of tales of hauntings.
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