Download or read book Fantasy Myth and the Measure of Truth written by William Gray and published by Palgrave MacMillan. This book was released on 2009 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study explores how the 'high fantasy' tradition, from German Romantic writers to Philip Pullman, has transposed spiritual and moral values, once the prerogative of organised religion, into new myths.
Download or read book True Myth written by James W Menzies and published by Lutterworth Press. This book was released on 2015-02-26 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: True Myth examines the meaning and significance of myth as understood by C.S. Lewis and Joseph Campbell and its place in the Christian faith in a technological society. C.S. Lewis defined Christianity, and being truly human, as a relationship between thepersonal Creator and his creation mediated through faith in his son, Jesus. The influential writer and mythologist Joseph Campbell had a different perspective, understanding Christianity as composed of mythical themes similar to those in other religious and secular myths. While accepting certain portions of the biblical record as historical, Campbell taught the theological and miraculous aspects as symbolic - as stories in which the reader discovers what it means to be human today. In contrast, Lewis presented the theological and the miraculous in a literal way. Although Lewis understood how one could see symbolism and lessons for life in miraculous events, he believed they were more than symbolic and indeed took place in human history. In True Myth, James W. Menzies skilfully balances the two writers' differing approaches to guide the reader through a complex interaction of myth with philosophy, media, ethics, history, literature, art, music and religion in a contemporary world.
Download or read book Transfiguring Transcendence in Harry Potter His Dark Materials and Left Behind written by Mike Gray and published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. This book was released on 2013-10-23 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Three recent and commercially successful series of novels employ and adapt the resources of popular fantasy fiction to create visions of religious identity: J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials and Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' Left Behind series. The act of creating fantasy counter-worlds naturally involves all three stories in the creation of what Mike Gray terms "transfigurations of transcendence": hopeful albeit paradoxical encodings of the ambiguous, non-observable reality whose primary locus in modern society is the societally extra-systemic human individual. Popular fantasy fiction turns out to involve acts of world-creation that are inherently religious and inherently paradoxical.A substantive examination shows that all three are involved in more or less intentional re-narrations of traditional Christian beliefs and narratives. The »atheist« His Dark Materials series does not deny but re-imagines the Christian visions of selfhood; the »traditionalist« Left Behind series does not simply replicate but modifies its own declared values; the apparent secularity of the Harry Potter series is shaped by its creative reception of Christian patterns and narratives. While the stories' visions of selfhood clearly clash, the basic paradoxes involved in their struggle to articulate transcendence expose significant parallels and a productive conversation with the Christian tradition.It is not simply that popular fantasy fiction is theologically relevant – the Christian Heilsgeschichte, too, proves to be highly relevant in popular culture. However, while far from obsolescent, models of religious identity in contemporary society require criticism and creativity – and, as evinced most powerfully in the Harry Potter stories, a flair for constructive engagement with paradox.
Download or read book Death and Fantasy written by William Gray and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2009-03-26 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on philosophy, theology and psychoanalysis as well as on literary criticism, this collection of essays explores a range of fantasy texts with particular attention to the various ways in which they seek to deal with the reality of death. The essays uncover some fascinating links, and indeed tensions, between the writers discussed.
Download or read book Classical Traditions in Modern Fantasy written by Brett M. Rogers and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Classical Traditions in Modern Fantasy presents fifteen all-new essays on how fantasy draws on ancient Greek and Roman mythology, philosophy, literature, history, art, and cult practice. Ranging from harpies to hobbits, from Cyclopes to Cthulhu, the comparative study of Classics and fantasy reveals deep similarities between ancient and modern ways of imagining the world.
Download or read book Folktales and Fairy Tales 4 volumes written by Anne E. Duggan Ph.D. and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-02-12 with total page 2815 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encyclopedic in its coverage, this one-of-a-kind reference is ideal for students, scholars, and others who need reliable, up-to-date information on folk and fairy tales, past and present. Folktales and fairy tales have long played an important role in cultures around the world. They pass customs and lore from generation to generation, provide insights into the peoples who created them, and offer inspiration to creative artists working in media that now include television, film, manga, photography, and computer games. This second, expanded edition of an award-winning reference will help students and teachers as well as storytellers, writers, and creative artists delve into this enchanting world and keep pace with its past and its many new facets. Alphabetically organized and global in scope, the work is the only multivolume reference in English to offer encyclopedic coverage of this subject matter. The four-volume collection covers national, cultural, regional, and linguistic traditions from around the world as well as motifs, themes, characters, and tale types. Writers and illustrators are included as are filmmakers and composers—and, of course, the tales themselves. The expert entries within volumes 1 through 3 are based on the latest research and developments while the contents of volume 4 comprises tales and texts. While most books either present readers with tales from certain countries or cultures or with thematic entries, this encyclopedia stands alone in that it does both, making it a truly unique, one-stop resource.
Download or read book Women Theology and Evangelical Children s Literature 1780 1900 written by Irene Euphemia Smale and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-01-12 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a wealth of fascinating information about many significant and lesser-known nineteenth-century Christian authors, mostly women, who were motivated to write material specifically for children’s spiritual edification because of their personal faith. It explores three prevalent theological and controversial doctrines of the period, namely Soteriology, Biblical Authority and Eschatology, in relation to children’s specifically engendered Christian literature. It traces the ecclesiastical networks and affiliations across the theological spectrum of Evangelical authors, publishers, theologians, clergy and scholars of the period. An unprecedented deluge of Evangelical literature was produced for millions of Sunday School children in the nineteenth century, resulting in one of its most prolific and profitable forms of publishing. It expanded into a vast industry whose magnitude, scope and scale is discussed throughout this book. Rather than dismissing Evangelical children’s literature as simplistic, formulaic, moral didacticism, this book argues that, in attempting to convert the mass reading public, nineteenth-century authors and publishers developed a complex, highly competitive genre of children’s literature to promote their particular theologies, faith and churchmanships, and to ultimately save the nation.
Download or read book A Companion to J R R Tolkien written by Stuart D. Lee and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a complete resource for scholars and students of Tolkien, as well as avid fans, with coverage of his life, work, dominant themes, influences, and the critical reaction to his writing. An in-depth examination of Tolkien’s entire work by a cadre of top scholars Provides up-to-date discussion and analysis of Tolkien’s scholarly and literary works, including his latest posthumous book, The Fall of Arthur, as well as addressing contemporary adaptations, including the new Hobbit films Investigates various themes across his body of work, such as mythmaking, medieval languages, nature, war, religion, and the defeat of evil Discusses the impact of his work on art, film, music, gaming, and subsequent generations of fantasy writers
Download or read book Constructing Leisure written by K. Spracklen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-10-12 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks back at the meaning and purpose of leisure in the past. But this is not a simple social history of leisure. It is not enough to write a history of leisure on its own in fact, it is impossible without engaging in the debate about what counts as leisure (in the present and in the past). Writing a history of leisure, then, entails writing a philosophy of leisure: and any history needs to be a philosophical history as well. That is the purpose of this book. It provides an account of leisure through historical time, how leisure was constructed and understood by historical actors, how communicative reason and free will interacted with instrumentality at different times, how historians have reconstructed past leisure through historiography, and finally, how writers have perceived the meaning and purpose of leisure in alternative histories. Providing a sweeping overview of the field, Karl Spracklen charts how the concept of leisure was understood in Ancient history, through to modern times, and looks at leisure in different societies and cultures including Byzantium and Asian civilizations, as well as looking at leisure and Islam. Spracklen concludes with a chapter on future histories of leisure.
Download or read book The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales written by Jack Zipes and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 757 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Oxford companion provides an authoritative reference source for fairy tales, exploring the tales themselves, both ancient and modern, the writers who wrote and reworked them and related topics such as film, art, opera and even advertising.
Download or read book The Little Book of J R R Tolkien written by Orange Hippo! and published by OH. This book was released on 2023-04-18 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A renowned scholar of the English language, Tolkien is today celebrated as the father of the high fantasy genre. Drawing on his knowledge of languages, mythology and legend, he created an entire alternative reality, Middle Earth, and populated it with hobbits, orcs, ents, dragons, magicians and giant spiders. Packed with fascinating facts about Tolkien's life and labors, this delightful volume includes extracts from his works, letters and interviews, as well as from his contemporaries and admirers. It's a celebration of the writer whose imagination and creative genius changed the course of fantasy literature. 'I would rather spend one lifetime with you, than face all the ages of this world alone.' The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) 'I am in fact a Hobbit (in all but size). I like gardens, trees and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking...' Tolkien in a letter to Deborah Webster, 25 October 1958 In July 1915, Tolkien took part in the Somme offensive, the bloodiest battle of the Great War. While recovering in hospital from trench fever, he wrote his first Elvish word list, as well as the first fragments of what would become The Silmarillion. The inspiration for The Hobbit came to Tolkien unexpectedly in the summer of 1930, while he was working his way through a huge stack of student essays. On a blank page he found himself scrawling, 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.'"
Download or read book C S Lewis A Life written by Alister McGrath and published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2013-02-18 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ECPA 2014 Christian Book Award Winner (Non-Fiction)! Fifty years after his death, C. S. Lewis continues to inspire and fascinate millions. His legacy remains varied and vast. He was a towering intellectual figure, a popular fiction author who inspired a global movie franchise around the world of Narnia, and an atheist-turned-Christian thinker. In C.S. Lewis—A Life, Alister McGrath, prolific author and respected professor at King’s College of London, paints a definitive portrait of the life of C. S. Lewis. After thoroughly examining recently published Lewis correspondence, Alister challenges some of the previously held beliefs about the exact timing of Lewis’s shift from atheism to theism and then to Christianity. He paints a portrait of an eccentric thinker who became an inspiring, though reluctant, prophet for our times. You won’t want to miss this fascinating portrait of a creative genius who inspired generations.
Download or read book Sanctuaries of Light in Nineteenth century European Literature written by Hugo Walter and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2010 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of insightful and provocative essays explores the theme of sanctuaries of light in nineteenth-century European literature, especially in selected works by William Wordsworth, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Joseph von Eichendorff, and Charlotte Brontë. These sanctuaries of light, natural beauty, and serenity comfort, nurture, and revitalize the heart, mind, and soul of the individual and inspire creative expression. This book will be of interest to professors, teachers, and scholars in the fields of English literature, German literature, European literature, comparative literature, and cultural studies.
Download or read book Tolkien in the Twenty First Century written by Nick Groom and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-09-05 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An original and thought-provoking reassessment of J. R. R. Tolkien’s world, revealing how his visionary creation of Middle-Earth is more relevant now than ever before. What is it about Middle-Earth and its inhabitants that has captured the imagination of millions of people around the world? And why does Tolkien's visionary creation continue to fascinate and inspire us eighty-five years after its first publication? Beginning with Tolkien's earliest influence—and drawing on key moments from his life, Tolkien in the Twenty-First Century is an engaging and vibrant reinterpretation of the beloved author's work. Not only does it trace the genesis and inspiration for the original books, but the narrative also explores the later film and literary adaptations that have cemented his reputation as a cultural phenomenon. Delving deep into topics such as friendship, failure, the environment, diversity, and Tolkien's place in a post-Covid age, Nick Groom takes us on an unexpected journey through Tolkien's world, revealing how it is more relevant now than perhaps Tolkien himself ever envisioned.
Download or read book Persona and Paradox written by Suzanne Bray and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2013-01-15 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although certain aspects of C.S. Lewis’s work have been studied in great detail, others have been comparatively neglected. This collection of essays looks at Lewis’s life and work, and those of his friends and associates, from many different angles, but all connected through a common theme of identity. Questions of identity are essential to the understanding of any writer. The ways authors perceive themselves and who they are, the communities they belong to by birth or choice, inevitably influence their work. The way they present other people, real or fictional, are also rooted in their own conception of identity. In this volume, scholars from several countries examine gender and family roles; national, regional, racial and professional identities; membership of a particular church; ideological attachments and personal descriptions, either with regard to Lewis and those who knew him and influenced him, or in a study of their writings. Authors studied here include J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy L. Sayers, Charles Williams, George MacDonald and T.S. Eliot.
Download or read book Screen Adaptations and the Politics of Childhood written by Robyn McCallum and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-01-16 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book features a cutting edge approach to the study of film adaptations of literature for children and young people, and the narratives about childhood those adaptations enact. Historically, film media has always had a partiality for the adaptation of ‘classic’ literary texts for children. As economic and cultural commodities, McCallum points out how such screen adaptations play a crucial role in the cultural reproduction and transformation of childhood and youth, and indeed are a rich resource for the examination of changing cultural values and ideologies, particularly around contested narratives of childhood. The chapters examine various representations of childhood: as shifting states of innocence and wildness, liminality, marginalisation and invisibility. The book focuses on a range of literary and film genres, from ‘classic’ texts, to experimental, carnivalesque, magical realist, and cross-cultural texts.
Download or read book J R R Tolkien written by Peter Hunt and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: J.R.R. Tolkien is arguably the most influential and popular of all fantasy writers. Although his position and status have long been controversial, his popularity has not faded. His best-loved works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, have sold millions of copies around the world and continue to enthral readers young and old. This lively collection of original essays examines The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in the light of children's literature theory and approaches, as well as from adult and fantasy literature perspectives. Exploring issues such as gender, language, worldbuilding, and ecocriticism, the volume also places Tolkien's works in the context of a range of visual media, including Peter Jackson's film adaptations.
