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Preview of Fantasy Fiction & Welsh Myth
 Around
the world fantasy writers are drawing more and more from ancient
Welsh mythic tales and folklore. What is the secret of their timeless
appeal? Kath-Filmer Davies examines the contemporary retellings
of the old Welsh stories and explores the way they treat the deepest
and most urgent of all human needs - the need to belong. She discusses
fantasy novels by popular authors such as Lloyd Alexander, Madeleine
L'Engle, Alan Garner and Stephen Lawhead. Historical romances have
fantasy elements too - such as those by Sharon Penman, Edith Pargeter
and Barbara Erskine. Arthurian literature and films are also reviewed
in a discussion of the Celtic notion of the hero and its importance,
on a personal level, for the individual reader.
The cover-design reproduces the Great Wheel Cross of Conbelin at
Margham by Romilly Allen. c. 1910, from Symbolism of the Celtic
Cross by Derek Brice (by kind permission of Llanerch Publishers,
Felinfach, Lampeter).
THE TABLE OF CONTENTS
| Introduction: |
Welsh Myth in Fiction: A Place of the Mind and
the Spirit |
| Chapter 1: |
Welsh Myth and the Sense of Belonging |
| Chapter 2: |
Eternal Triangles and the Cycles of Myth |
| Chapter 3: |
Reconstructing the Present from the Stories of
the Past |
| Chapter 4: |
Children From Dysfunctional Families: Instruments
of Mythic Healing |
| Chapter 5: |
The Place of the Pig-keeper:To Know Oneself |
| Chapter 6: |
Arthurian Novels and the Spirit of Welsh Place
|
| Chapter 7: |
Belonging and the Right of Possession: Children's
Novels |
| Chapter 8: |
Welsh Myth in Historical Novels |
| Chapter 9: |
The Film Hero and Welsh Mythology |
| Chapter 10: |
Myth, Theology and Belonging |
Kath Filmer-Davies is a Senior Lecturer in English at the University
of Queensland. She is the author of Scepticism and Hope in Twentieth-Century
Fantasy Literature and The Fiction of C. S. Lewis: Mask and Mirror.
The latter has twice been shortlisted for the Inklings Scholarship
Award of the International Mythopoeic Society (1994, 1995). She
has edited two collections of essays published by MacMillan: The
Victorian Fantasists and Twentieth-Century Fantasists, both of which
have won the Mythopoeic Society's Scholarship Awards in Myth and
Fantasy Studies (1992, 1994). She has published numerous scholarly
articles on aspects of science fiction and fantasy, theology and
literature, contemporary literature and literary theory. She is
also a poet, a writer of short fiction, and a regular broadcaster
on Australian national radio on topics involving myth, legend and
fantasy.
ORDERING
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ISBN 0 333 65028 x HARDCOVER
ISBN 0 33 65029 S paper
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(choice of hardback or paperback)
CUSTOMERS IN THE USA -
ISBN 0 312 15927 7
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Contact: St Martin's Press Inc., 257 Park Avenue South, New
York NY;
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(paperback only)
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