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Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies
A scholarly edition of poetical works by Charles Churchill. The
edition presents an authoritative text, together with an
introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.
Classical Traditions in Modern Fantasy is the first collection of
essays in English focusing on how fantasy draws deeply on ancient
Greek and Roman mythology, philosophy, literature, history, art,
and cult practice. Presenting fifteen all-new essays intended for
both scholars and other readers of fantasy, this volume explores
many of the most significant examples of the modern genre-including
the works of H. P. Lovecraft, J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, C. S.
Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series,
George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones series, and more-in relation
to important ancient texts such as Aeschylus' Oresteia, Aristotle's
Poetics, Virgil's Aeneid, and Apuleius' The Golden Ass. These
varied studies raise fascinating questions about genre, literary
and artistic histories, and the suspension of disbelief required
not only of readers of fantasy but also of students of antiquity.
Ranging from harpies to hobbits, from Cyclopes to Cthulhu, and all
manner of monster and myth in-between, this comparative study of
Classics and fantasy reveals deep similarities between ancient and
modern ways of imagining the world. Although antiquity and the
present day differ in many ways, at its base, ancient literature
resonates deeply with modern fantasy's image of worlds in flux and
bodies in motion.
Set in Hardy's Wessex, Tess is a moving novel of hypocrisy and
double standards. Its challenging sub-title, A Pure Woman,
infuriated critics when the book was first published in 1891, and
it was condemned as immoral and pessimistic. It tells of Tess
Durbeyfield, the daughter of a poor and dissipated villager, who
learns that she may be descended from the ancient family of
d'Urbeville. In her search for respectability her fortunes
fluctuate wildly, and the story assumes the proportions of a Greek
tragedy. It explores Tess's relationships with two very different
men, her struggle against the social mores of the rural Victorian
world which she inhabits and the hypocrisy of the age. In
addressing the double standards of the time, Hardy's masterly
evocation of a world which we have lost, provides one of the most
compelling stories in the canon of English literature, whose appeal
today defies the judgement of Hardy's contemporary critics.
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