Stories about Stories: Fantasy and the Remaking of Myth by Brian Attebery (Engli

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Drawing on literary history and folklore, Stories about Stories offers an introduction to the fantasy genre's popularity and cultural importance. Reading works by figures such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Ursula K. Le Guin, Alan Garner, Amitav Ghosh, and many others, Attebery explores both the familiar and the forgotten to produce the first comprehensive look at fantasy's uses of myth.

FORMATPaperback LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Publisher Description

Myth is oral, collective, sacred, and timeless. Fantasy is a modern literary mode and a popular entertainment. Yet the two have always been inextricably intertwined. Stories about Stories examines fantasy as an arena in which different ways of understanding myth compete and new relationships with myth are worked out. The book offers a comprehensive history of the modern fantastic as well as an argument about its nature and importance. Specific chapterscover the origins of fantasy in the Romantic search for localized myths, fantasy versions of the Modernist turn toward the primitive, the post-Tolkienian exploration of world mythologies, post-colonial reactions tothe exploitation of indigenous sacred narratives by Western writers, fantasies based in Christian belief alongside fundamentalist attempts to stamp out the form, and the emergence of ever-more sophisticated structures such as metafiction through which to explore mythic constructions of reality.

Author Biography

Brian Attebery is Professor of English at Idaho State University and the editor of Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. He is also the coeditor, with Ursula K. Le Guin, of The Norton Book of Science Fiction (Norton, 1997) and the author of Decoding Gender in Science Fiction (Routledge, 2002) among other works.

Table of Contents

Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1: Fantasy as a Route to MythTaxonomic Interlude: A Note on GenresChapter 2: Make It Old: The Other Mythic MethodChapter 3: Silver Lies and Spinning Wheels: Christian Myth in MacDonald and LewisChapter 4: Romance and Formula, Myth and MemorateChapter 5: Expanding the Territory: Colonial FantasyChapter 6: Angels, Fantasy, and BeliefLiteralist Interlude: Burning Harry PotterChapter 7: The Postcolonial FantasticChapter 8: Coyote's Eyes: Situated FantasyWorks Cited

Review

"I highly recommend Brian Attebery's new book. It's a scholarly work, but it reads with bright clarity as takes us back and forth between fantasy and myth, showing not only the connections, but also how the best of fantasy is a roadmap that can return the reader to its source material."--Fantasy and Science Fiction"Brian Attebery is the most readable, the most knowledgeable, and the least quarrelsome of critics. Stories about Stories adds new vistas of understanding to his unsurpassed survey of imaginative literature." --Ursula K. Le Guin"Brian Attebery hits the mother lode in this brilliant archaeology of fantasy and myth. The closest thing to a definitive guide for what C.S. Lewis called 'lies breathed through silver,' Stories about Stories enables us to understand the higher truths of narratives that walk a tightrope between sacred and profane, faith and skepticism, poetry and prose." --Maria Tatar, author of Enchanted Hunters"With radiant clarity, Brian Attebery's Stories about Stories examines what happens when we 'imagine our way into the realms of mastery and wonder' by considering the performative and contextualizing nature of narrative. It is a brilliant book by one of the fantastic's most informed, most penetrating, and wisest critics, who understands that the subjectivity of fictive knowledge is the engine behind its energy and fascination." --Peter Straub"Stories about Stories is the best analysis we yet possess of mythopoesis. Attebery's work mediates powerfully between the creative appropriations of myth in modern fantasy, a story known to many, and the less well-known stories of the scholarly rediscovery of myth, and the tenuous survival of oral narrative and myth in living context." --Tom Shippey, the author of The Road to Middle Earth

Promotional

The first comprehensive study of fantasy's uses of myth

Long Description

Myth is oral, collective, sacred, and timeless. Fantasy is a modern literary mode and a popular entertainment. Yet the two have always been inextricably intertwined. Stories about Stories examines fantasy as an arena in which different ways of understanding myth compete and new relationships with myth are worked out. The book offers a comprehensive history of the modern fantastic as well as an argument about its nature and importance. Specific chapterscover the origins of fantasy in the Romantic search for localized myths, fantasy versions of the Modernist turn toward the primitive, the post-Tolkienian exploration of world mythologies, post-colonial reactions to the exploitation of indigenous sacred narratives by Western writers, fantasies based in Christianbelief alongside fundamentalist attempts to stamp out the form, and the emergence of ever-more sophisticated structures such as metafiction through which to explore mythic constructions of reality.

Review Text

"I highly recommend Brian Attebery's new book. It's a scholarly work, but it reads with bright clarity as takes us back and forth between fantasy and myth, showing not only the connections, but also how the best of fantasy is a roadmap that can return the reader to its source material."--Fantasy and Science Fiction"Brian Attebery is the most readable, the most knowledgeable, and the least quarrelsome of critics. Stories about Stories adds new vistas of understanding to his unsurpassed survey of imaginative literature." --Ursula K. Le Guin"Brian Attebery hits the mother lode in this brilliant archaeology of fantasy and myth. The closest thing to a definitive guide for what C.S. Lewis called 'lies breathed through silver,' Stories about Stories enables us to understand the higher truths of narratives that walk a tightrope between sacred and profane, faith and skepticism, poetry and prose." --Maria Tatar, author of Enchanted Hunters"With radiant clarity, Brian Attebery's Stories about Stories examines what happens when we 'imagine our way into the realms of mastery and wonder' by considering the performative and contextualizing nature of narrative. It is a brilliant book by one of the fantastic's most informed, most penetrating, and wisest critics, who understands that the subjectivity of fictive knowledge is the engine behind its energy and fascination." --Peter Straub"Stories about Stories is the best analysis we yet possess of mythopoesis. Attebery's work mediates powerfully between the creative appropriations of myth in modern fantasy, a story known to many, and the less well-known stories of the scholarly rediscovery of myth, and the tenuous survival of oral narrative and myth in living context." --Tom Shippey, the author of The Road to Middle Earth

Review Quote

"I highly recommend Brian Attebery's new book. It's a scholarly work, but it reads with bright clarity as takes us back and forth between fantasy and myth, showing not only the connections, but also how the best of fantasy is a roadmap that can return the reader to its source material."--Fantasy and Science Fiction "Brian Attebery is the most readable, the most knowledgeable, and the least quarrelsome of critics. Stories about Stories adds new vistas of understanding to his unsurpassed survey of imaginative literature." --Ursula K. Le Guin "Brian Attebery hits the mother lode in this brilliant archaeology of fantasy and myth. The closest thing to a definitive guide for what C.S. Lewis called 'lies breathed through silver,' Stories about Stories enables us to understand the higher truths of narratives that walk a tightrope between sacred and profane, faith and skepticism, poetry and prose." --Maria Tatar, author of Enchanted Hunters "With radiant clarity, Brian Attebery's Stories about Stories examines what happens when we 'imagine our way into the realms of mastery and wonder' by considering the performative and contextualizing nature of narrative. It is a brilliant book by one of the fantastic's most informed, most penetrating, and wisest critics, who understands that the subjectivity of fictive knowledge is the engine behind its energy and fascination." --Peter Straub "Stories about Stories is the best analysis we yet possess of mythopoesis. Attebery's work mediates powerfully between the creative appropriations of myth in modern fantasy, a story known to many, and the less well-known stories of the scholarly rediscovery of myth, and the tenuous survival of oral narrative and myth in living context." --Tom Shippey, the author of The Road to Middle Earth

Feature

Conferences: MLA, MSA, AMLA, ASTA, IAFA (International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts), BSFA (British Science Fiction Association), ACLA, NAVSA, BAVSJournals: PMLA, ALH, American Literature, Victorian Studies, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, Science Fiction Studies, The Journal of Science Fiction Film and Television, Tolkien Studies, The Journal of Inklings Studies, Literature and Theology, New York Review of Science FictionProspective courses: The Literatureof Fantasy (ENGL 119, University of Illinois, Chicago), The Literature of Fantasy and Science Fiction (LIT 3311, University of Texas, Dallas), Fantasy and Science Fiction (University of Michigan), Science Fiction and Fantasy (ENG 257, West Virginia University at Parkersburg), Science Fiction and Fantasy (Purdue), Introduction to Fantasy (LIT 3312, Florida Atlantic University), Studies in Mythmaking (English 477, University of Maryland)Selling point: Introduces a new way of looking at the uses of folklore in literatureSelling point: Describes a theoretical approach that accounts for both the genre's popularity and controversies such as attempts to ban or burn fantasy booksSelling point: Engages a stunning historical breadth, with fantasy texts from the eighteenth to twenty-first centuries

Details ISBN0199316074 Author Brian Attebery Short Title STORIES ABT STORIES Language English ISBN-10 0199316074 ISBN-13 9780199316076 Media Book Format Paperback Birth 1951 Affiliation Idaho State University Year 2014 Subtitle Fantasy and the Remaking of Myth Illustrations black & white illustrations Position PhD Candidate Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States UK Release Date 2014-01-23 AU Release Date 2014-01-23 NZ Release Date 2014-01-23 US Release Date 2014-01-23 Edited by Nkidi Phatudi Death 1593 Qualifications QC Pages 256 Publisher Oxford University Press Inc Publication Date 2014-01-23 Imprint Oxford University Press Inc Alternative 9780199316069 DEWEY 809.38766 Audience General We've got this

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