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The Fiction of Ruth Rendell
Barbara Fass Leavy's The Fiction of Ruth Rendell: Ancient Tragedy and the Modern Family analyzes and interprets the multi-layered themes in the novels of Ruth Rendell, who also writes as Barbara Vine.
In Search of the Swan Maiden
In her compendious study, [of the folktale of the runaway wife] Leavy argues that the contradictory claims of nature and culture are embodied in the legendary figure of the swan maiden, a woman torn between the human and bestial worlds. --The New York Times Book Review This is a study of the meaning of gender as framed by the swan maiden tale, a story found in the folklore of virtually every culture. The swan maiden is a supernatural woman forced to marry, keep house, and bear children for a mortal man who holds the key to her imprisonment. When she manages to regain this key, she escapes to the otherworld, never to return. These tales have most often been interpreted as depicting exogamous ...
To Blight with Plague
"A sensitive, intelligent book." —Sander L. Gilman, Professor of Humane Studies, Cornell University How is AIDS treated in the contemporary plays of Larry Kramer and William Hoffman? How important is the Black Death to a reader of Boccaccio's Decameron? How have the historical and current outbreaks of contagious disease affected the creation of literature, and how has this literature in turn shaped our response to disease? Original and moving, To Blight with Plague addresses these and other central questions raised by literary works whose main themes revolve around contagious, epidemic disease and its social and psychological consequences.
The Fiction of Ruth Rendell
Aside from Ruth Rendell's brilliance as a fiction writer, and her appeal to mystery lovers, her books portray a compelling, universal experience that her readers can immediately relate to, the intra-familial stresses generated by the nuclear family. Even those who experience the joys as well as pains of family life will find in Rendell the conflicts that beset all who must navigate their way through the conflicts that beset members of the closest families. Barbara Fass Leavy analyzes the multi-leveled treatment of these themes that contributes to Rendell's standing as a major contemporary novelist. Rendell, who also writes as Barbara Vine, draws on ancient Greek narratives, and on the psycho...
Ibsen's Forsaken Merman
Critics have conceded that Ibsen used folk themes in his earlier, inferior plays, but no major book has dealt with the fact that even in his later work, he made extensive use of folklore. In this work, cultural anthropologist Per Schelde Jacobsen and literary critic Barbara Fass Leavy present a study of the late plays that offers both a fascinating look at Ibsen's subtle use of folk narratives and an illuminating discussion of the folklore itself. Norwegian tales dealing with various kinds of fairy folk. They reveal how Ibsen used folk motifs, showing his remarkable sensitivity to how deep and far-reaching the folklore was in exploring human emotion and expression. Fold Ballad and Its Significance for the Literary Arts and excerpts from his diary notes from a trip to the far north of Norway to collect folk ballads.
Arthurian Women
Featuring three original and 14 classic essays, this volume examines literary representations of women in Arthuriana and how women artists have viewed them. The essays discuss the female characters in Arthurian legend, medieval and modern readers of the legend, modern critics and the modern women writers who have recast the Arthurian inheritance, and finally women visual artists who have used the material of the Arthurian story. All the essays concentrate interpretation on a female creator and the work. This collection contains a useful bibliography of material devoted to female characters in Arthurian literature.
Splitting the Difference
Hindu and Greek mythologies teem with stories of women and men who are doubled. This text recounts and compares a range of these. The comparisons show that differences in gender are more significant than differences in culture.
