Paper Summary:

This paper focuses upon illustrating the relevance of the obvious emphasis and taboo regarding Greek burial or death rites as it is portrayed in a significant amount of ancient Greek literature. The paper examines how literature has long been a relevant source that historians as well as other scholars can turn to so as to glean at least a marginal understanding regarding the societal norms of the era or culture in particular.

Outline
Introduction
Generalities Regarding Ancient Greek Burial Rites
Relevance of Literary Illustrations Regarding Ancient Greek Perspectives on Death
Burial Rites Within Ancient Greek literature
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"One of the first things that essentially needs to be taken into consideration is that, as a result of their significantly un-advanced and superstitiously primitive preconceptions and beliefs, that nearly all kinds of ancient literature is tinged, to some degree or another, with elements of the super natural or paranormal. The occult, witches, curses and ghosts, all are things that are mentioned, with varying degree of figurativeness and realism, within ancient British as well as Greek literature. Moreover, there appears to be a particular degree of emphasis upon the relevance and effectuality of such things as oaths and curses, especially in regard to the likes of such being implemented in concern to a particular person's death or burial. This something that is quite strongly portrayed when Euripides' Hippolytus, the protagonist within the play, reasserts his confidence to his father in so much as taking an oath that in death may neither sea nor earth receive my flesh, if I have proved false (Lawson, 1964)."

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