Fantasies of Time and Death (eBook)

Dunsany, Eddison, Tolkien

Anna Vaninskaya (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF | EPUB

2019 | 1st ed. 2020
VIII, 262 Seiten
Palgrave Macmillan UK (Verlag)
978-1-137-51838-5 (ISBN)

Infos

This book reveals the unique contribution made by the three founding fathers of British fantasy-Lord Dunsany, E. R. Eddison and J. R. R. Tolkien-to our culture's perennial reassessment of the meanings of time, death and eternity. It traces the poetic, philosophical and theological roots of the striking preoccupation with mortality and temporality that defines the imagined worlds of early fantasy fiction, and gives both the form of such fiction and its ideas the attention they deserve. Dunsany, Eddison and Tolkien raise some of the oldest questions in existence: about the limits of nature, human and divine; cosmic creation and destruction; the immortality conferred by art and memory; and the paradoxes and uncertainties generated by the universal experience of transience, the fear of annihilation and the desire for transcendence. But they respond to those questions by means of thought experiments that have no precedent in modern literary history.

Anna Vaninskaya is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She is the author of William Morris and the Idea of Community (Edinburgh University Press, 2010) and over forty articles and book chapters on nineteenth and twentieth-century literature, politics and history.

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This book reveals the unique contribution made by the three founding fathers of British fantasy-Lord Dunsany, E. R. Eddison and J. R. R. Tolkien-to our culture's perennial reassessment of the meanings of time, death and eternity. It traces the poetic, philosophical and theological roots of the striking preoccupation with mortality and temporality that defines the imagined worlds of early fantasy fiction, and gives both the form of such fiction and its ideas the attention they deserve. Dunsany, Eddison and Tolkien raise some of the oldest questions in existence: about the limits of nature, human and divine; cosmic creation and destruction; the immortality conferred by art and memory; and the paradoxes and uncertainties generated by the universal experience of transience, the fear of annihilation and the desire for transcendence. But they respond to those questions by means of thought experiments that have no precedent in modern literary history.This book has won the '2021 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award' for Myth and Fantasy Studies.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 26.12.2019
• Zusatzinfo: VIII, 262 p. 1 illus.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Film / TV
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
• Schlagworte: British and Irish Literature • E. R. Eddison • Fantasy writing • J. R. R. Tolkien • lord dunsany • Time and death in writing
• ISBN-10: 1-137-51838-3 / 1137518383
• ISBN-13: 978-1-137-51838-5 / 9781137518385