katabasis meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

katabasis

noun

/kəˈtæbəsɪs/

Etymology From Ancient Greek κατάβασις (katábasis), from verb καταβαίνω (katabaínō, from κατά (katá, “downwards”) + βαίνω (baínō, “go”)).

Human sciences, Literature, Media, Mysticism, Mythology, Philosophy, Publishing, Sciences A mytheme or trope in which the hero embarks on a journey to the underworld.

The ancient Greeks and the peoples of remote antiquity already knew of journeys of the soul, but these were often journeys to the infernal regions, descents into hell, catabases, with obstacles, such as encounters with various monsters, menaces of all sorts, the crossing of the bridge of the dead or the passage of mysterious rivers on foot or on horseback.1923, Georges Berguer, translated by E. S. Brooks and Van Wyck Brooks, Some aspects of the life of Jesus from the psychological and psycho-analytic point of view, page 58:
The logic of the underworld is most on show in the Phaedra and the Hercules [of Seneca], which feature the returns of Theseus and Hercules from their katabases.2009, James Ker, The Deaths of Seneca, page 136:

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Willy, the concentration camp survivor who has experienced more evil than any other character, places no value on catabasis. When asked (in connection with Aeneid VI) 'Do you think everyone ought to descend to the underworld?', he replies briskly, 'Certainly not! It's very dark and stuffy and one is more likely to feel frightened than to learn anything.[…]'2010, P. Martin, Anne Rowe, Iris Murdoch: A Literary Life, page 84:
Therefore, Erling Holtsmark's point that literary-mythic katabasis captures “the imagined physical orientation of the other world relative to this one” (25), is superseded in a post-mythic, ostensibly secular worldview by a journey that takes place within an underworld that is an exteriorized 'projection' of a protagonist's putative interior world, the domain especially of the unconscious, memory and dream.2013, Russell J.A. Kilbourn, “Introduction”, in Cinema, Memory, Modernity:The Representation of Memory from the Art Film to Transnational Cinema, page 31:

Broadly, Humorous Any journey downwards or fall.

How did the man in the moon come down? The distance between the earth and moon is by no means inconsiderable, and other obstacles “too tedious to mention,” lie in the way of this famous Catabasis, which his lunar majesty is declared to have performed.1842 February, “The Man in the Moon”, in Yale Literary Magazine, volume 7, number 4, page 205:
“Unconscious of the danger she descended, When the defendant's negligent conductor, Ere her catabasis was fully ended, Started the car,—the nail held fast and chucked her Heels over head and calling on her gods, On the hard road, and yanked her several rods.1896, Benjamin F. Burnham, “§ 772. Dana on the Crinoline Case”, in Leading in Law and Curious in Court, page 621:

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The depths of his drinking were achieved after Jane left him, but the bathysphere was well on its way down while she was still there. The low point of his catabasis took time to reach, but the steadily descending trajectory is hard to miss.2009, Clive James, “Kingsley and the Women”, in The revolt of the pendulum: essays, 2005-2008, page 42:

A retreat, especially a military one.

2dly, That of a great military expedition, offering the same romantic features[…]which mark[…]the Russian anabasis and katabasis of Napoleon.1837, Thomas de Quincey, “Revolt of the Tartars”, in Collected Writings, volume 7, published 1890, page 369:
Mr. Elton had, like the king celebrated in nursery tale, only gone up-hill to come back again. He had travelled over seven hundred miles by straight road to within seven of Monterey, only to turn round and retrace his steps! The most amusing part of the Katabasis was that the townspeople, knowing that the occupation of the French was drawing to a close, no longer showed them any civility.1868, J. P. Elton, “With the French in Mexico”, in New Monthly Magazine, volume 142, page 123:

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[We] took the evening train for Abelmans. This was the beginning of the katabasis of our party. In the morning we continued it, and by short stages to various points, and in various ways, we gladly made our way homeward, better friends than ever to old Beloit.1878 December, “Collegiana”, in The Beloit College Monthly, volume 20, number 3, page 90:

A journey from the interior of a country to the coast.

As the French Tenth Army shattered like the porcelain shell of a Faberge egg, British and Polish expeditionary forces that had supported the French hastily withdrew toward the Channel coast—technically it was a katabasis, the opposite of the ancient military term anabasis, which meant a march to the interior.2008, The Building: A Biography of the Pentagon, page 56:
So the core of the work is really a katabasis, detailing the heroic slog through the cold and snows of upper Iraq, Kurdistan, and Armenia to the safety of the Black Sea, ending with a parabasis, along the southern coast of the sea back toward Byzantium and Europe.2010, Victor Davis Hanson, The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern, page 65:

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The katabasis of surf travel – moving from the interior to the coast, from shelter to adventure – also educates a mindset.2012, S Bleakley, JS Callahan, Surfing Tropical Beats, page 4:
These transitions reflect the deep narrative or rite of passage that structures The Songs of Mihyar as a whole: the katabasis away from Damascus, a national space inhabited by an identifiable collective, toward the coast of international exile.2019, Robyn Creswell, City of Beginnings: Poetic Modernism in Beirut, page 112:
The largest formation to attempt a katabasis across Russia to the Pacific coast was the Czecho-Slovak Army Corps in Russia, better known as the Czecho-Slovak Legion.2020, Brent Mueggenberg, The Cossack Struggle Against Communism, 1917-1945, page 98:
In military terms, the anabasis, the going “up”, was historically the march from the coast to the interior, and so the katabasis was the return march.2022, David Sinclair, The Church of the Serpent:

Rare The presence of downward (drainage or katabatic) winds.

Sasttrugi permit the identification of regions of developed katabasis and their direction, and therefore the general relief features in certain Antarctic regions.1967, Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports, page 1868:
In the forward part of the cyclone, drainage katabasis is checked; but its highest intensity is observed in the rear part of the cyclone.1960, N. P. Rusin, “The Radiation Balance of the Snow Surface of Antarctica”, in OG Krichak, editor, Scientific Conference on Problems of Meteorology of the Antarctic (Abstracts of Reports)(USSR)., page 29:

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Creating a wind model based on the new maps, Parish determined that the topographical conditions for katabasis applied most dramatically on the Adélie Coast where, like loose strands of a rope knotted together, a string of ice ridges converged, by geological happenstance, on a single, narrow, […]2021, Gillen D’Arcy Wood, Land of Wondrous Cold: The Race to Discover Antarctica and Unlock the Secrets of Its Ice, page 196: