Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 16 -- Underground Rivers in English Fiction
CHAPTER 16
UNDERGROUND RIVERS IN ENGLISH FICTION
In the telling of stories, we sail upon underground rivers. Writers who incorporate subterranean
waters into their settings contribute to our collective imagination.
In Chapter 14, we reviewed pseudoscientific speculation regarding a hollow-earth. As the
geophysical assumptions never passed the muster of scientific scrutiny, however, let us consider
not the facts, but rather -- Hello again, Plato -- the ideals.
When asked about literary meaning, T.S. Elliot (1888-1965) reflected,
At what point in its course does the Mississippi become what the Mississippi means?
Or as we might revise it, pursuant to our particular journey,
At what point in its course does an underground river become what an underground river
means?
Is it when the underground river meanders our imagination?
Before us lie ten chapters concerned with underground rivers in fiction. Ten chapters may seem
to be overkill, we agree, but there are many shelves of such literature.
We'll not belabor the arching question as we march through our library, but we'll return to it at the
end.
What commonalities of literary device do we detect in our bibliographic sojourn?
We we to advise a novice author on proven ways to incoprporate an underground river in a work
of fiction, what would we point to?
While we could test hypotheses by tallying works, we'll not be that academic. We'll just meander
through the bookshelves, skimming what catches our fancy. At the end, we'll reflect on our
subjective impressions.
In this and the next chapter, we'll look at authors aclaimed in English literature; in the chapter
after, we'll look at some who wrote other languages. In the three chapters following, we'll meet
writers who aimed at the quintessencial readership of underground river fiction, the Boys Club..
In the interest of brevity and with our apologies to the authors, the excerpts are pared to
quotations related to subterranean waters.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Though no works of the Bard refer to underground rivers, per se,
Shakespeare indeed mentions Charon in his less-remembered Troilus and
Cressida (1602) through the mouth of Troilus,
No, Pandarus, I stalk about her door,
Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks
Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,
And give me swift transportance to those fields (Act 3, Scene II)
Perhaps when Hamlet says in Act 1,
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
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