The Myth of Persephone in Girls' Fantasy Literature: 80 (Children's Literature and Culture) - Softcover

Blackford, Holly

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1138793493 ISBN 13: 9781138793491

Verlag: Routledge, 2014

Über diesen Titel

Críticas

"Blackford's far-reaching book is required reading for those interested in young-adult literature and/or gender studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended." --V. A. Murrenus Pilmaier, University of Wisconsin Sheboygan, CHOICE

Reseña del editor

In this book, Blackford historicizes the appeal of the Persephone myth in the nineteenth century and traces figurations of Persephone, Demeter, and Hades throughout girls' literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She illuminates developmental patterns and anxieties in E. T. A. Hoffmann's Nutcracker and Mouse King, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, J. M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy, Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, E. B. White's Charlotte's Web, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, and Neil Gaiman's Coraline. The story of the young goddess's separation from her mother and abduction into the underworld is, at root, an expression of ambivalence about female development, expressed in the various Neverlands through which female protagonists cycle and negotiate a partial return to earth. The myth conveys the role of female development in the perpetuation and renewal of humankind, coordinating natural and cultural orders through a hieros gamos (fertility coupling) rite. Meanwhile, popular novels such as Twilight and Coraline are paradoxically fresh because they recycle goddesses from myths as old as the seasons. With this book, Blackford offers a consideration of how literature for the young squares with broader canons, how classics flexibly and uniquely speak through novels that enjoy broad appeal, and how female traditions are embedded in novels by both men and women.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Routledge
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1138793493
• ISBN 13: 9781138793491
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Sprache: Englisch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 260