A Century Of Welsh Myth In Children S Literature

Author : Donna R. White
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 174 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 1998-04-08
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780313069291

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A Century of Welsh Myth in Children's Literature by Donna R. White Pdf

Myth, legend, and folklore have been entrenched in children's literature for several centuries and continue to be popular. Some of the most ancient traditional tales still extant come from the Celtic cultures of France and the British Isles, whose languages are among the oldest in Europe. Among these tales are four native Welsh legends collectively known as the Mabinogi, which were first translated into English in 1845 by Lady Charlotte Guest. Numerous children's books have been based on the Mabinogi since then, and many have received awards and critical acclaim. Because these books are written for children, they are not necessarily faithful retellings of the original tales. Instead, authors have had to select certain elements to include and others to exclude. This book examines how authors of children's fantasy literature from the 19th century to the present have adapted Welsh myth to meet the perceived needs of their young audience. The volume begins with a summary of the four principle tales of the Mabinogi: Pwyll Prince of Dyfed, Branwen Daughter of Llyr, Manawydan Son of Llyr, and Math Son of Mathonwy. Books based on the Mabinogi generally fall into two categories: retellings of the myths, and original works of fantasy partially inspired by the Welsh tales. Beginning with Sidney Lanier's The Boy's Mabinogion, the first part of this book examines versions of the myths published for children between 1881 and 1988. The second part discusses imaginative literature that borrows elements from the Mabinogi, including Alan Garner's The Owl Service, which won a Carnegie medal, and Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain, the final volume of which received the ALA Newbery Award for outstanding children's book.

Author : C. W. Sullivan III
Publisher : Praeger
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 1989-03-07
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780313249983

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Welsh Celtic Myth in Modern Fantasy by C. W. Sullivan III Pdf

This study provides a fascinating look at the various ways in which 20th-century fantasy writers have used Welsh Celtic mythology and folklore in their work. Following the theories formulated by such scholars as John Vickery and Joseph Campbell, the use of Celtic materials by each of the authors is discussed from a mythology-in-literature perspective. Sullivan presents an extensive accounting of the Celtic material used and explores the primary ways in which the authors incorporate it into their fiction, both structurally and thematically. Sullivan identifies and analyzes the nature and extent of Welsh Celtic influence on subsequent cultures and their literatures, and he considers some of the previous attempts to evaluate this influence. The appendixes provide valuable background materials, including critical commentary on the Welsh collection of myths, legends, folktales, and beliefs that are of major importance in the work of the six authors represented. Also included are extensive bibliographies of primary and secondary sources. Illuminating reading for students and scholars of mythology, modern fantasy, and children's literature, this book sheds new light on the Welsh influence in literature and opens paths for further research.

Author : Audrey L. Becker,Kristin Noone
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 236 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2011-09-07
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780786487257

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Welsh Mythology and Folklore in Popular Culture by Audrey L. Becker,Kristin Noone Pdf

Examining how we interpret Welshness today, this volume brings together fourteen essays covering a full range of representations of Welsh mythology, folklore, and ritual in popular culture. Topics covered include the twentieth-century fantasy fiction of Evangeline Walton, the Welsh presence in the films of Walt Disney, Welshness in folk music, video games, and postmodern literature. Together, these interdisciplinary essays explore the ways that Welsh motifs have proliferated in this age of cultural cross-pollination, spreading worldwide the myths of one small British nation.

Author : Dimitra Fimi
Publisher : Springer
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2017-03-06
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781137552822

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Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy by Dimitra Fimi Pdf

Runner-up of the Katherine Briggs Folklore Award 2017 Winner of the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Myth & Fantasy Studies 2019 This book examines the creative uses of “Celtic” myth in contemporary fantasy written for children or young adults from the 1960s to the 2000s. Its scope ranges from classic children’s fantasies such as Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain and Alan Garner’s The Owl Service, to some of the most recent, award-winning fantasy authors of the last decade, such as Kate Thompson (The New Policeman) and Catherine Fisher (Darkhenge). The book focuses on the ways these fantasy works have appropriated and adapted Irish and Welsh medieval literature in order to highlight different perceptions of “Celticity.” The term “Celtic” itself is interrogated in light of recent debates in Celtic studies, in order to explore a fictional representation of a national past that is often romanticized and political.

Author : Michael Levy,Farah Mendlesohn
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2016-04-16
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781316483138

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Children's Fantasy Literature by Michael Levy,Farah Mendlesohn Pdf

Fantasy has been an important and much-loved part of children's literature for hundreds of years, yet relatively little has been written about it. Children's Fantasy Literature traces the development of the tradition of the children's fantastic - fictions specifically written for children and fictions appropriated by them - from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century, examining the work of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, C. S. Lewis, Roald Dahl, J. K. Rowling and others from across the English-speaking world. The volume considers changing views on both the nature of the child and on the appropriateness of fantasy for the child reader, the role of children's fantasy literature in helping to develop the imagination, and its complex interactions with issues of class, politics and gender. The text analyses hundreds of works of fiction, placing each in its appropriate context within the tradition of fantasy literature.

Author : Haru Takiuchi
Publisher : Springer
Page : 218 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2017-08-21
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9783319553900

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British Working-Class Writing for Children by Haru Takiuchi Pdf

This book explores how working-class writers in the 1960s and 1970s significantly reshaped British children’s literature through their representations of working-class life and culture. Aidan Chambers, Alan Garner and Robert Westall were examples of what Richard Hoggart termed ‘scholarship boys’: working-class individuals who were educated out of their class through grammar school education. This book highlights the role these writers played in changing the publishing and reviewing practices of the British children's literature industry while offering new readings of their novels featuring scholarship boys. As well as drawing on the work of Raymond Williams and Pierre Bourdieu, and referring to studies of scholarship boys in the fields of social science and education, this book also explores personal interviews and previously-unseen archival materials. Yielding significant insights on British children’s literature of the period, this book will be of particular interest to scholars and students in the fields of children’s and working-class literature and of British popular culture.

Author : Jane Suzanne Carroll
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2012-08-06
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781136321177

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Landscape in Children's Literature by Jane Suzanne Carroll Pdf

This book provides a new critical methodology for the study of landscapes in children's literature. Treating landscape as the integration of unchanging and irreducible physical elements, or topoi, Carroll identifies and analyses four kinds of space — sacred spaces, green spaces, roadways, and lapsed spaces — that are the component elements of the physical environments of canonical British children’s fantasy. Using Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising Sequence as the test-case for this methodology, the book traces the development of the physical features and symbolic functions of landscape topoi from their earliest inception in medieval vernacular texts through to contemporary children's literature. The identification and analysis of landscape topoi synthesizes recent theories about interstitial space together with earlier morphological and topoanalytical studies, enabling the study of fictional landscapes in terms of their physical characteristics as well as in terms of their relationship with contemporary texts and historical precedents. Ultimately, by providing topoanalytical studies of other children’s texts, Carroll proposes topoanalysis as a rich critical method for the study and understanding of children’s literature and indicates how the findings of this approach may be expanded upon. In offering both transferable methodologies and detailed case-studies, this book outlines a new approach to literary landscapes as geographical places within socio-historical contexts.

Author : Raymond E. Jones
Publisher : Scarecrow Press
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : Education
ISBN : 0810854015

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E. Nesbit's Psammead Trilogy by Raymond E. Jones Pdf

The year 2006 marks the hundredth anniversary of book publication of the final volume of the Psammead trilogy-Five Children and It (1902), The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904), and The Story of the Amulet (1906)-a remarkable series of fantasy novels for children by an equally remarkable writer, Edith Nesbit. Written by both established and new scholars in England, Canada, and the United States, the essays in this collection employ differing critical strategies and place Nesbit in various contexts to assess her achievement. --form publisher description.

Author : Janice Bland,Christiane Lütge
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 249 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2013-02-14
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781441183521

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Children's Literature in Second Language Education by Janice Bland,Christiane Lütge Pdf

Leading international scholars and teacher educators explore the latest research into the effective uses of children's literature in language teaching for children and young adults.

Author : Donna R. White
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 510 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 1991
Category : Children's literature, American
ISBN : MINN:31951D00771593E

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The Mabinogi in Children's Literature by Donna R. White Pdf

Author : Sian Echard,Robert Rouse
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 2102 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2017-08-07
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781118396988

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The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain, 4 Volume Set by Sian Echard,Robert Rouse Pdf

Bringing together scholarship on multilingual and intercultural medieval Britain like never before, The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain comprises over 600 authoritative entries spanning key figures, contexts and influences in the literatures of Britain from the fifth to the sixteenth centuries. A uniquely multilingual and intercultural approach reflecting the latest scholarship, covering the entire medieval period and the full tapestry of literary languages comprises over 600 authoritative yet accessible entries on key figures, texts, critical debates, methodologies, cultural and isitroical contexts, and related terminology Represents all the literatures of the British Isles including Old and Middle English, Early Scots, Anglo-Norman, the Norse, Latin and French of Britain, and the Celtic Literatures of Wales, Ireland, Scotland and Cornwall Boasts an impressive chronological scope, covering the period from the Saxon invasions to the fifth century to the transition to the Early Modern Period in the sixteenth Covers the material remains of Medieval British literature, including manuscripts and early prints, literary sites and contexts of production, performance and reception as well as highlighting narrative transformations and intertextual links during the period

Author : Dimitra Fimi,Alistair J. P. Sims
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 233 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2023-02-23
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781350350007

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Imagining the Celtic Past in Modern Fantasy by Dimitra Fimi,Alistair J. P. Sims Pdf

Focusing on representations of Celtic motifs and traditions in post-1980s adult fantasy literature, this book illuminates how the historical, the mythological and the folkloric have served as inspiration for the fantastic in modern and popular culture of the western world. Bringing together both highly-acclaimed works with those that have received less critical attention, including French and Gaelic fantasy literature, Imagining the Celtic Past in Modern Fantasy explores such texts as Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Alan Garner's Weirdstone trilogy, the Irish fantasies of Jodi McIsaac, David Gemmell's Rigante novels, Patricia Kennealy-Morrison Keltiad books, as well as An Sgoil Dhubh by Iain F. MacLeòid and the Vertigen and Frontier series by Léa Silhol. Lively and covering new ground, the collection examines topics such as fairy magic, Celtic-inspired worldbuilding, heroic patterns, classical ethnography and genre tropes alongside analyses of the Celtic Tarot in speculative fiction and Celtic appropriation in fan culture. Introducing a nuanced understanding of the Celtic past, as it has been informed by recent debates in Celtic studies, this wide-ranging and provocative book shows how modern fantasy is indebted to medieval Celtic-language texts, folkloric traditions, as well as classical sources.

Author : Sanna Lehtonen
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 233 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2013-05-08
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780786461363

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Girls Transforming by Sanna Lehtonen Pdf

This book explores representations of girlhood and young womanhood in recent English language children's fantasy by focusing on two fantastic body transformation types: invisibility and age-shifting. Drawing on recent feminist and queer theory, the study discusses the tropes of invisibility and age-shifting as narrative devices representing gendered experiences. The transformations offer various perspectives on a girl's changing body and identity and provide links between real-life and fantastic discourses of gender, power, invisibility and aging. The main focus is on English-language fantasy published since the 1970s but the motifs of invisibility and age-shifting in earlier tales and children's books is reviewed; this is the first study of children's fantasy literature that considers these tropes at length. Novels discussed are from both critically acclaimed authors and the less well known. Most of the novels depicting invisible or age-shifting girls are neither thoroughly conventional nor radically subversive but present a range of styles. In terms of gender, children's fantasy novels can be more complex than they are often interpreted to be.

Author : Donna R. White,C. Anita Tarr
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 366 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : Children
ISBN : 9780810854284

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J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan in and Out of Time by Donna R. White,C. Anita Tarr Pdf

Part of the "Centennial Studies" series, this fourth volume explores the cultural contents of Barrie's creation and the continuing impact of "Peter Pan" on children's literature and popular culture in contemporary times. It also focuses on the fluctuations of time and narrative strategies.

Author : Brian Stableford
Publisher : Scarecrow Press
Page : 568 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2009-08-13
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0810863456

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The A to Z of Fantasy Literature by Brian Stableford Pdf

Once upon a time all literature was fantasy, set in a mythical past when magic existed, animals talked, and the gods took an active hand in earthly affairs. As the mythical past was displaced in Western estimation by the historical past and novelists became increasingly preoccupied with the present, fantasy was temporarily marginalized until the late 20th century, when it enjoyed a spectacular resurgence in every stratum of the literary marketplace. Stableford provides an invaluable guide to this sequence of events and to the current state of the field. The chronology tracks the evolution of fantasy from the origins of literature to the 21st century. The introduction explains the nature of the impulses creating and shaping fantasy literature, the problems of its definition and the reasons for its changing historical fortunes. The dictionary includes cross-referenced entries on more than 700 authors, ranging across the entire historical spectrum, while more than 200 other entries describe the fantasy subgenres, key images in fantasy literature, technical terms used in fantasy criticism, and the intimately convoluted relationship between literary fantasies, scholarly fantasies, and lifestyle fantasies. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography that ranges from general textbooks and specialized accounts of the history and scholarship of fantasy literature, through bibliographies and accounts of the fantasy literature of different nations, to individual author studies and useful websites.