Good Dragons Are Rare

Author : Fanfan Chen
Publisher : Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Dragons
ISBN : 3631582196

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Good Dragons are Rare by Fanfan Chen Pdf

Dragons are a universal phenomenon and have fascinated humans since the dawn of time. Yet whereas we have numerous studies into the origins of these fantastic creatures, there have been very few attempts at discussing their appearance, function and development within literary texts. The eighteen essays collected in this volume (8 in French, 6 in German and 4 in English) - written by an international cast of scholars - try to fill this gap by looking at dragons in literature East and West, contemporary and past.

Author : Bruce R. Cordell,Robert J. Schwalb,Ari Marmell
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Dungeons and Dragons (Game)
ISBN : 0786949805

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Draconomicon by Bruce R. Cordell,Robert J. Schwalb,Ari Marmell Pdf

"Draconomicon I" describes several varieties of dragons, including red, blue, green, black, and white dragons, as well as three completely new chromatic dragons. This sourcebook gives details of each dragon's powers, tactics, myths, lairs, servitors, and more.

Author : Steven Barfield,Katharine Cox
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2011-09-29
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0786440309

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Critical Perspectives on Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials by Steven Barfield,Katharine Cox Pdf

Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials stands as a landmark in fantasy literature. Comprised of the novels The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass, the award-winning epic trilogy has been adapted for radio, stage, and film in both Britain and the United States, though it remains controversial for its negative depiction of religion. Herein, scholars from various literary, philosophical, and theatrical fields explore His Dark Materials, addressing numerous topics relevant to reading, studying and understanding the work, including its basis in Milton's Paradise Lost; the influence of science fiction on the series; issues of social class, religion, sexuality, and gender; postcolonial perspectives; and recent stage productions.

Author : Robert D. Fulk
Publisher : Indiana University Press
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 1991-03-22
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0253206391

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Interpretations of Beowulf by Robert D. Fulk Pdf

Interpretations of Beowulf brings together over six decades of literary scholarship. Illustrating a variety of interpretative schools, the essays not only deal with most of the major issues of Beowulf criticism, including structure, style, genre, and theme, but also offer the sort of explanations of particular passages that are invaluable to a careful reading of a poem. This up-to-date collection of significant critical approaches fills a long-standing need for a companion volume for the study of the poem. Larger patterns in the history of Beowulf criticism are also traceable in the chronological order of the collection. The contributors are Theodore M. Andersson, Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, Jane Chance, Laurence N. de Looze, Margaret E. Goldsmith, Stanley B. Greenfield, Joseph Harris, Edward B. Irving, Jr., John Leyerle, Francis P. Magoun, Jr., M. B. McNamee, S. J., Bertha S. Phillpotts, John C. Pope, Richard N. Ringler, Geoffrey R. Russom, T. A. Shippey, and J. R. R. Tolkien.

Author : Rick Gekoski
Publisher : Constable
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2023-01-19
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1472133846

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Guarded by Dragons by Rick Gekoski Pdf

The Times Best Literary Non-fiction Books 2021 - 'a super yarn' 'Rick Gekoski's encyclopaedic knowledge of rare books is matched only by the enthusiasm and brio with which he writes about them' Ian Rankin Rick Gekoski has been traversing the rocky terrain of the rare book trade for over fifty years. The treasure he seeks is scarce, carefully buried and often jealously guarded, knowledge of its hiding place shared through word of mouth like the myths of old. In Guarded by Dragons, Gekoski invites readers into this enchanted world as he reflects on the gems he has unearthed throughout his career. He takes us back to where his love of collecting began - perusing D.H. Lawrence first editions in a slightly suspect Birmingham carpark. What follows are dizzying encounters with literary giants as Gekoski publishes William Golding, plays ping-pong with Salman Rushdie and lunches with Graham Greene. A brilliant stroke of luck sees Sylvia Plath's personal copy of The Great Gatsby fall into Gekoski's lap, only for him to discover the perils of upsetting a Poet Laureate when Ted Hughes demands its return. Hunting for literary treasure is not without its battles and Gekoski boldly breaks the cardinal rule never to engage in a lawsuit with someone much richer than yourself, while also guarding his bookshop from the most unlikely of thieves. The result is an unparalleled insight into an almost mythical world where priceless first editions of Ulysses can vanish, and billionaires will spend as much gold as it takes to own the manuscript of J.K. Rowling's Tales of Beedle the Bard. Engaging, funny and shrewd, Guarded by Dragons is a fascinating discussion on value and worth. At the same time, Gekoski artfully reveals how a manuscript can tell a thousand stories.

Author : Martin Arnold
Publisher : Reaktion Books
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2018-06-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781780239415

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Dragon by Martin Arnold Pdf

From the fire-breathing beasts of North European myth and legend to the Book of Revelation’s Great Red Dragon of Hell, from those supernatural agencies of imperial authority in ancient China to the so-called dragon-women who threaten male authority, dragons are a global phenomenon, one that has troubled humanity for thousands of years. These often scaly beasts take a wide variety of forms and meanings, but there is one thing they all have in common: our fear of their formidable power and, as a consequence, our need either to overcome, appease, or in some way assume that power as our own. In this fiery cultural history, Martin Arnold asks how these unifying impulses can be explained. Are they owed to our need to impose order on chaos in the form of a dragon-slaying hero? Is it our terror of nature, writ large, unleashed in its most destructive form? Or is the dragon nothing less than an expression of that greatest and most disturbing mystery of all: our mortality? Tracing the history of ideas about dragons from the earliest of times to Game of Thrones, Arnold explores exactly what it might be that calls forth such creatures from the darkest corners of our collective imagination.

Author : Thomas Honegger
Publisher : University of Wales Press
Page : 194 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2019-08-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781786834690

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Introducing the Medieval Dragon by Thomas Honegger Pdf

The aim of this book is to explore the characteristics of the medieval dragon and discuss the sometimes differing views found in the relevant medieval text types. Based on an intimate knowledge of the primary texts, the study presents new interpretations of well-known literary works, and also takes into consideration paintings and other depictions of these beasts. Dragons were designed not only to frighten but also to fire the imagination, and provide a suitably huge and evil creature for the hero to overcome – yet there is far more to them than reptilian adversaries. This book introduces the medieval dragon via brief, accurate and clear chapters on its natural history, religion, literature and folklore, and concludes with how the dragon – from Beowulf to Tolkien, Disney and Potter – is constantly revived.

Author : Scott G. Bruce
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 385 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2021-10-12
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780525506690

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The Penguin Book of Dragons by Scott G. Bruce Pdf

Two thousand years of legend and lore about the menace and majesty of dragons, which have breathed fire into our imaginations from ancient Rome to Game of Thrones A Penguin Classic The most popular mythological creature in the human imagination, dragons have provoked fear and fascination for their lethal venom and crushing coils, and as avatars of the Antichrist, servants of Satan, couriers of the damned to Hell, portents of disaster, and harbingers of the last days. Here are accounts spanning millennia and continents of these monsters that mark the boundary between the known and the unknown, including: their origins in the deserts of Africa; their struggles with their mortal enemies, elephants, in the jungles of South Asia; their fear of lightning; the world’s first dragon slayer, in an ancient collection of Sanskrit hymns; the colossal sea monster Leviathan; the seven-headed “great red dragon” of the Book of Revelation; the Loch Ness monster; the dragon in Beowulf, who inspired Smaug in Tolkien’s The Hobbit; the dragons in the prophecies of the wizard Merlin; a dragon saved from a centipede in Japan who gifts his human savior a magical bag of rice; the supernatural feathered serpent of ancient Mesoamerica; and a flatulent dragon the size of the Trojan Horse. From the dark halls of the Lonely Mountain to the blue skies of Westeros, we expect dragons to be gigantic, reptilian predators with massive, bat-like wings, who wreak havoc defending the gold they have hoarded in the deep places of the earth. But dragons are full of surprises, as is this book.

Author : Robin McKinley
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 364 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Juvenile Fiction
ISBN : 0399246754

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Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley Pdf

When Jake Mendoza, who lives in the Smokehill National Park where his father runs the Makepeace Institute of Integrated Dragon Studies, goes on his first solo overnight in the park, he finds an infant dragon whose mother has been killed by a poacher.

Author : Niels Gutschow,Katharina Weiler
Publisher : Springer
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2014-11-26
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9783319116327

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Spirits in Transcultural Skies by Niels Gutschow,Katharina Weiler Pdf

The volume investigates the visualization of both ritual and decorative aspects of auspiciousness and protection in the form of celestial characters in art and architecture. In doing so, it covers more than two and a half millennia and a broad geographical area, documenting a practice found in nearly every corner of the world. Its transcultural approach aims at gaining insights into cultural dynamics and consistent networks and defining new historical mindmaps; it examines reciprocal effects and aspects of interwovenness in art and architecture with a view to reconceptualizing their established realms. The collection opens a window on a phenomenon in the history of art and architecture that has never before been considered from this perspective. The book focuses on a transcultural iconography of aerial spirits, goddesses and gods in art history, pursuing a methodologically innovative approach in order to redefine and develop the practice of identification and classification of motifs as a means to understanding meaning, and attempting to challenge the categories defined by academic disciplines.

Author : James R. Kreuzer,Lee Cogan
Publisher : Ardent Media
Page : 708 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 1963
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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Modern Writings on Major English Authors by James R. Kreuzer,Lee Cogan Pdf

Author : Jeffrey Wittenhagen
Publisher : Lulu.com
Page : 166 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2014-02-14
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9781312016712

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Hidden Treasures: Rare & Unappreciated Gems by Jeffrey Wittenhagen Pdf

In all generations of video games there contains Hidden Treasures, Unappreciated Gems that exist. These games can sometimes be rare or unknown, while other times you may have seen them sitting on the shelf but looked right past them. This book looks at a few of these games, generation by generation, to give a little insight into a few that you may not have noticed. How many of these gaming treasures have you played?

Author : ML Spencer
Publisher : Stoneguard Publications
Page : 832 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2020-12-22
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1951452054

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Dragon Mage by ML Spencer Pdf

Aram Raythe has the power to challenge the gods. He just doesn't know it yet. Aram thinks he's nothing but a misfit from a small fishing village in a dark corner of the world. As far as Aram knows, he has nothing, with hardly a possession to his name other than a desire to make friends and be accepted by those around him, which is something he's never known. But Aram is more. Much, much more. Unknown to him, Aram bears within him a gift so old and rare that many people would kill him for it, and there are others who would twist him to use for their own sinister purposes. These magics are so potent that Aram earns a place at an academy for warrior mages training to earn for themselves the greatest place of honor among the armies of men: dragon riders. Aram will have to fight for respect by becoming not just a dragon rider, but a Champion, the caliber of mage that hasn't existed in the world for hundreds of years. And the land needs a Champion. Because when a dark god out of ancient myth arises to threaten the world of magic, it is Aram the world will turn to in its hour of need.

Author : J. R. R. Tolkien
Publisher : HarperCollins UK
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2013-05-23
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780007375905

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The Monsters and the Critics by J. R. R. Tolkien Pdf

The complete collection of Tolkien’s essays, including two on Beowulf, which span three decades beginning six years before The Hobbit to five years after The Lord of the Rings.

Author : John Sagert
Publisher : Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
Page : 367 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2018-07-27
Category : Young Adult Fiction
ISBN : 9781641140959

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The Second Blight War by John Sagert Pdf

It is a time of beginnings, a time of endings, a time when the vast world of Andoran comes under great upheaval, nearing the end of one age only to give birth to another. An ancient evil not seen since the Age of Dreams has come forth again to consume the living or bring death to those that would not be consumed. It is a time shortly after an unnatural plague ravaged those who lived in a hard fought for short time of peace and harmony, the Shadow Plagues-brought upon by the re-awakening of an even more ancient enemy called the Void, that which seeks to utterly consume all that lives. Fear rules the hearts and souls of all. Though most only know this fear as something that could be about to happen, a never-ending ominous darkness that looms just out of sight-the kind of apoplectic feeling that all wish and hope is only a bad dream. It is dark times were the Lord of the Undead has reawakened from a three millennia old sleep. The armies of the wicked join under the banner of this mad Lord. These armies roam freely the lands once held by good people who died in the plagues. There is hope, as those few who still possess the strength of the First Men and Love of the Creator will stand, defy and overcome or die trying to defeat that which would destroy any of the good placed in this vast mythical world. Only the legions of the South and these few remaining ancestors of the First Men stand in the way of utter ruin.