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Original and engaging, this study presents the four anonymous poems found in the Cotton Nero MS - Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - as a composite text with a continuous narrative. While it is widely accepted that the poems attributed to the Pearl-Poet ought to be read together, this book demonstrates that instead of being analyzed as four distinct, though interconnected, textual entities, they ought to be studied as a single literary unit that produces meaning through its own intricate internal structure. Piotr Spyra defines the epistemological thought of Saint Augustine as an interpretive key which, when applied to the composite text of the manuscript, reveals a fabric of thematic continuity. This book ultimately provides the reader with a clear sense of the poet's perspective on the nature of human knowledge as well as its moral implications and with a deeper understanding of how the poems bring the theological and philosophical problems of the Middle Ages to bear on the individual human experience.
A unique collection of essays on selected aspects of science-fiction, fantasy and broadly understood fantastic literature, unified by a highly theoretical focus, this volume offers an overview of the most important theories pertaining to the field of the fantastic, such as Tzvetan Todorov's definition of the term itself, J.R.R. Tolkien's essay 'On Fairy Stories,' and the concept of 'Gothic space'. The composition and order of the chapters provide the reader with a systematic overview of major...
Many of the fairies and spirits mentioned within this book come from regions where information on the fairies isn’t readily available in English elsewhere. A few of these include; Mari-El – In the heart of an ancient forest which was so vast and isolated it allowed the people within to remain the last pagans in Europe. For the people of this land never converted to Islam or Christianity, and so to this day they still value the spirits of the forest. Their woodlands are filled with a dizzying array of spirits, from bathhouse spirits that appear as shooting stars to spirits which always run and move backwards. Brittany – One of the last remaining Celtic kingdoms, where many traditional C...
Original and engaging, this study presents the four anonymous poems found in the Cotton Nero MS - Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - as a composite text with a continuous narrative. While it is widely accepted that the poems attributed to the Pearl-Poet ought to be read together, this book demonstrates that instead of being analyzed as four distinct, though interconnected, textual entities, they ought to be studied as a single literary unit that produces meaning through its own intricate internal structure. Piotr Spyra defines the epistemological thought of Saint Augustine as an interpretive key which, when applied to the composite text of the manuscript, reveals a fabric of thematic continuity. This book ultimately provides the reader with a clear sense of the poet's perspective on the nature of human knowledge as well as its moral implications and with a deeper understanding of how the poems bring the theological and philosophical problems of the Middle Ages to bear on the individual human experience.
Who is the Pearl-poet? How do ideas about his life and interpretations of his poems shape our understanding of his work in late-medieval England—and beyond? In Becoming the Pearl-Poet: Perceptions, Connections, Receptions, readers can explore the world of this extraordinary, fourteenth-century writer. In Part I, “Perceptions,” five scholars give insightful literary analyses of the narrative poems attributed to the poet: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and St. Erkenwald. In Part II, “Connections,” six scholars examine connections between these diverse poems, focusing on authorship, ecology, material culture, sartorial adornment, shields, and the poet’s...
Exploring space: Spatial notions in cultural, literary and language studies falls into two volumes and is the result of the 18th PASE (Polish Association for the Study of English) Conference organized by the English Department of Opole University and held at Kamień Śląski in April 2009. The first volume embraces cultural and literary studies and offers papers on narrative fiction, poetry, theatre and drama, and post-colonial studies. The texts and contexts explored are either British, American or Commonwealth. The second volume refers to English language studies and covers papers on lexicography, general linguistics and rhetoric, discourse studies and translation, second language acquisition/foreign language learning, and the methodology of foreign language teaching. The book aims to offer a comprehensive insight into how the category of space can inform original philological research; thus, it may be of interest to those in search of novel applications of space-related concepts, and to those who wish to acquire an update on current developments in English Studies across Poland (from the Preface).
Not to be confused with fantasy or the supernatural, the fantastic is in actuality its own beast and perhaps the most deeply frightening of all narrative modes. From Dracula and Nightmare on Elm Street, to Carrie and Them, the fantastic has become an ideal vehicle to denounce deep cultural dysfunctions that affect not only the way we understand reality, but also how we construct it. This work studies the various dimensions of the fantastic mode, examining the influences of iconic authors such as H.P. Lovecraft and Jean Ray, and addressing key narrations such as Guy de Maupasasant's The Horla and Jordan Peele's Get Out. It explains why the fantastic is not about ghosts or monsters, but about the incomprehensible sides of our own reality, and the terrifying unknown.
Twenty commentaries on the Middle-English poem Pearl GLOSSATOR 9 (2015): PEARL Edited by Nicola Masciandaro & Karl Steel “Innoghe”: A Preface on Inexhaustibility – Karl Steel The Arbor and the Pearl: Encapsulating Meaning in “Spot” – William M. Storm Pearl, Fitt II – Kevin Marti Pearl, Fitt III (“more and more”) – Piotr Spyra “Pyȝt”: Ornament, Place, and Site – A Commentary on the Fourth Fitt of Pearl – Daniel C. Remein Meeting One’s Maker: The Jeweler in Fitt V of Pearl – Noelle Phillips “Mercy Schal Hyr Craftez Kyþe”: Learning to Perform Re-Deeming Readings of Materiality in Pearl – James C. Staples Fitt 7: Blysse / (Envy) – Paul Megna Pearl, Fitt ...
Literature in English is a term that has recently appeared to include both English literature in the traditional sense of the word and all the newly emerging literatures written and published in English whose authors may represent various ethnic and cultural backgrounds. This series as well as our yearly Literature in English Symposium (LIES) organized by the Department of English Literature and Literary Linguistics, the School of English at Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań (Poland), respond to the current interest in wider mapping of English literature. Each year the symposium is devoted to a particular topic linked with the interests of an invited writer, whose presentation we also publish. This volume is devoted to the issue of self-fashioning and self-representation as it is the main area of interest of Andrew Miller.
The debate surrounding the Christian aspects of C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter has revealed not only the prominence of religious themes in fantasy fiction, but also readers' concerns over portrayals of religion in fantasy. Yet while analyses of these works fill many volumes, other fantasy series have received much less attention. This critical study explores the fantastic religions and religious themes in American and Canadian works by Stephen R. Donaldson (Chronicles of Thomas Covenant), Guy Gavriel Kay (Fionavar Tapestry), Celia S. Friedman (Coldfire Trilogy), and Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn). References to biblical tradition and Christian teachings reveal these writers' overall approach to Christianity and the relationship between Christianity and the fantasy genre.