Diana Wynne Jones’s “Fire and Hemlock” draws on the Tam Lin story to give women a model for heroism that counters the role assigned to them in traditional fairy tales.
Tag Archives: fantasy
Diana Wynne Jones’s Feminist Fantasy
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Diana Wynne Jones, Fire and Hemlock, Relationships, Tam Lin Comments closed
British and American Fantasy Contrasted
An “Atlantic” article argues that British fantasy is richer than American fantasy. I agree that they are different and that there are interesting reasons for those differences–but that American fantasy is vibrant as well.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged C. S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia, Edgar Allan Poe, J. R. R. Tolkien, Kenneth Grahame, Lord of the Rings, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Stephen King, wind in the willows Comments closed
Donne’s Lovers, Spooky at a Distance
Tuesday Adam Gopnik makes some nice literary allusions in a recent New Yorker essay-review of George Musser’s Spooky at a Distance, which is about the history of quantum entanglement theory. Entanglement, also known as non-locality and described by Einstein as “spooky at a distance,” claims that two particles of a single wave function can influence each other, even […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", "Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", Albert Einstein, Anthony Trollope, entanglement, John Donne, Lyrical Ballads, non-locality, Science, science fiction, William Wordsworth Comments closed
How Fantasy Saves Our Souls
Great fantasy can always be seen as oppositional, pushing against prevailing modes of thought and opening up portals into new human possibilities.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Age of Reason, Bacchae, Don Quixote, Enlightenment, Euripides, Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Miguel de Cervantes, Scientific Revolution, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Tracks Comments closed
A Fantasy about U.S. Thirst for War
Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods” understands the thirst of those Americans that want to go to war with Iran.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged American Gods, Iran, Iraq War, It, Neil Gaiman, neoconservatives, nuclear negotiations, road novel, Stephen King, violence, war Comments closed
Erdrich Charts a Third Way for Fantasy
L. Frank Baum and Edgar Allen Poe represent the light and the dark strains of American fantasy. But Louise Erdrich introduces a third strain, Native American, to the conversation.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Anishinaabe, Edgar Allen Poe, L. Frank Baum, Louise Erdrich, Tracks Comments closed
Yeats & Ireland’s World of Faery
Yeats’ “Stolen Child” longs for the lost world of faery but also finds something precious in the here and now world of Ireland.
How to Analyze Fantasy Projections
What fantasy means in 15 simple steps.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged oppression, Repression, return of the repressed, Rider Haggard, She Comments closed
