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This exciting collection of essays explores the fantastic in world literature, art, theater, film, and popular culture.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Allienne Becker Theoretical Perspectives Vampirism by Clemens Ruthner Mircea Eliade's Theory of the Fantastic by Elaine L. Kleiner English Language Literatures If Hamlet's Uncle Had Been a Nicer Guy by Brian Aldiss Order from Chaos: War, Pestilence, and the Near-Death Experience in Katherine Anne Porter's Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Joan Frederick The Flesh Made Word: Miss Lonelyhearts' Sublime Grotesque by Catherine Merrill The Engendering of Narrative in Doris Lessing's Shikasta and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale by Earl G. Ingersoll Foreign Literatures Virgin, Knight, and Devil: Gottfried Keller's Legends as Fantasy by Lee B. Jennings Fantastic Doubles in Cristina Fernández Cubas's Tales for Children by Kathleen M. Glenn Hard to Be a God: The Political Antiworlds of Voznesensky, Sokolov, and the Brothers Strugatsky by Jesse Airaudi The Wail of the Banshee: Vampire Ghosts, Man-Eating Ghosts, and Other Malevolent Spirits in Irish Fairy Tales by Maureen T. Krause Comparative Literature Borges' 'El Aleph' and Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher': Two Studies in the Poetics of Gothic Romance by Robin McAllister The Emphasis on the European Contact Situation in the American Science Fiction Novel's Representation of Culture Contact by Tammy D. McJannet We Almost Ate From the Tree of Life: Fantasy and Horror in Ancient Near Eastern Religious Texts by Susan Kray Art and Creative Writing Eros and the Mer: Poetry and an Exhibition of Artwork by Edward Carlos Horror Fiction Frankenstein and Dracula: The Question of Influence by Elizabeth Miller Bürger's Ballad 'Lenore': En route to Dracula by David B. Dickens Simmons and Powers: Postmodernism to Post-Romanticism by Janeen Webb Theater and Film Staging the Phantasmagorical:The Theatrical Challenges and Rewards of William Butler Yeats by James Flannery Francis Coppola's Secret Gardens: Bram Stoker's Dracula and the Auteur as Decadent Visionary by Kenneth Jurkiewicz Shape-Shifting, Vampires, and the Oedipus Myth: Jean Cocteau's The Infernal Machine by Irene Eynat-Confino Speculative Fiction Pierre Menard in Cyperspace: The Internet as Intertext by John Pennington Remembering: Time and Myth in Kleinzeit and The Medusa Frequency by Peter Malekin

About the Author

ALLIENNE R. BECKER is a Professor in the Foreign Language Department at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania where she teaches courses in Comparative Literature specializing in fantasy and speculative fiction. She is author of The Lost Worlds Romance: From Dawn to Dusk (Greenwood, 1992) and numerous articles.

Reviews

?I recommend this book for three reasons: an informative introduction, the inclusion of creative works, and a good number of well-written essays....The content of the book is very strong....I found reading Visions of the Fantastic interesting and stimulating as it educated me on a great deal of good work being done about fantasy literature.?-Exploration

"I recommend this book for three reasons: an informative introduction, the inclusion of creative works, and a good number of well-written essays....The content of the book is very strong....I found reading Visions of the Fantastic interesting and stimulating as it educated me on a great deal of good work being done about fantasy literature."-Exploration