The Transcendent Vision of Mythopoeic Fantasy

An ever-expanding critical library on fantasy fiction requires an analysis of why the genre is so ubiquitous, enduring and beloved. This work analyzes the mythic elements in foundational fantasy texts, arguing that mythopoeic fantasy reveals timeless truths that link human cultures past and present. Through close readings of works like Phantastes, The King of Elfland's Daughter, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Neverending Story, A Wrinkle in Time and Out of the Silent Planet, this book explores how mythopoeic fantasy speaks to the deepest concerns of the human heart. It investigates the genre's use of an imagination that is sometimes atrophied by the demands of contemporary life, and explores how fantasy provides restoration, consolation and hope within a cultural context that too often decries such ideas.

Each chapter focuses on a representative text, providing author background and engaging relevant scholarship on a variety of relevant thematic issues. Offering new insights on these classic texts by drawing upon post-secular critical approaches, this work is suitable for both new and seasoned students of fantasy.

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The Transcendent Vision of Mythopoeic Fantasy

An ever-expanding critical library on fantasy fiction requires an analysis of why the genre is so ubiquitous, enduring and beloved. This work analyzes the mythic elements in foundational fantasy texts, arguing that mythopoeic fantasy reveals timeless truths that link human cultures past and present. Through close readings of works like Phantastes, The King of Elfland's Daughter, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Neverending Story, A Wrinkle in Time and Out of the Silent Planet, this book explores how mythopoeic fantasy speaks to the deepest concerns of the human heart. It investigates the genre's use of an imagination that is sometimes atrophied by the demands of contemporary life, and explores how fantasy provides restoration, consolation and hope within a cultural context that too often decries such ideas.

Each chapter focuses on a representative text, providing author background and engaging relevant scholarship on a variety of relevant thematic issues. Offering new insights on these classic texts by drawing upon post-secular critical approaches, this work is suitable for both new and seasoned students of fantasy.

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The Transcendent Vision of Mythopoeic Fantasy

The Transcendent Vision of Mythopoeic Fantasy

by David S. Hogsette
The Transcendent Vision of Mythopoeic Fantasy

The Transcendent Vision of Mythopoeic Fantasy

by David S. Hogsette

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Overview

An ever-expanding critical library on fantasy fiction requires an analysis of why the genre is so ubiquitous, enduring and beloved. This work analyzes the mythic elements in foundational fantasy texts, arguing that mythopoeic fantasy reveals timeless truths that link human cultures past and present. Through close readings of works like Phantastes, The King of Elfland's Daughter, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Neverending Story, A Wrinkle in Time and Out of the Silent Planet, this book explores how mythopoeic fantasy speaks to the deepest concerns of the human heart. It investigates the genre's use of an imagination that is sometimes atrophied by the demands of contemporary life, and explores how fantasy provides restoration, consolation and hope within a cultural context that too often decries such ideas.

Each chapter focuses on a representative text, providing author background and engaging relevant scholarship on a variety of relevant thematic issues. Offering new insights on these classic texts by drawing upon post-secular critical approaches, this work is suitable for both new and seasoned students of fantasy.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781476682921
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date: 08/04/2022
Pages: 232
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.46(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

David S. Hogsette is a professor of English and the executive director of the School of English Studies at Wenzhou-Kean University, Wenzhou, China, where he teaches a variety of courses on literature and literary research. He has published articles in Studies in Romanticism, Critique and Christianity and Literature.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vi

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 George MacDonald's Phantastes: The Redemptive Imagination and the Quest for Sacrificial Love 15

Chapter 2 Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter: Clashing Worldviews and Recovering Communion through Sacrificial Love 39

Chapter 3 J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring: Understanding Good, Evil, Friendship, and Free Will 59

Chapter 4 C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: Fantasy as Evangelium and Apologia 92

Chapter 5 Michael Ende's The Neverending Story: Quenching Nihilistic Despair and Filling Postmodern Spiritual Voids with the Water of Life 120

Chapter 6 Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea: Ethical Complexities in Dualistic Mythopoeic Fantasy 149

Chapter 7 Fantasy SF: Galactic Quests and the Mythopoeic Struggle for Intergalactic Good in A Wrinkle in Time and Out of the Silent Planet 168

Chapter Notes 195

Bibliography 211

Index 221

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