Barring such illnesses as claustrophobia or agoraphobia, or situations such as medical isolation or incarceration, most people move naturally from smaller to larger spaces and back again without giving the process much thought. But paying attention to our own movement in space yields all sorts of sensory experiences from something relaxing to something terrifying or even astonishingly beautiful. Our sense of expandable/contractible space can influence how we process everything from Japanes...

A story that follows a simple trajectory is seldom worth telling. But the unexpected overturning of narrative progress creates complexity and interest, directing the reader's attention to the most powerful elements of a story.Exile, for example, upsets a protagonist's hopes for a happy earthly life, emphasizing spiritual perception instead. Waking life interrupts dreams, just as dreams may redirect how one lives.Focusing on medieval literature, this study explores how narra...

The 14th century English alliterative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is admired for its morally complex plot and brilliant poetics. A chivalric romance placed in an Arthurian setting, it has since received acclaim for its commentary regarding important socio-political and religious concerns. The poem's technical brilliance blends psychological depth and vivid language to produce an effect widely considered superior to any other work of the time. Although the poem is a combin...

Why did the most read work in English literature go without cinematic adaptation for so long? And why did five major film treatments appear between 1999 and 2008? This book explores the growing number of films based on the Old English epic poem Beowulf, and furthers the ongoing consideration of filmic medievalism. Will the powerful influence of cinema affect the future reception of this great cultural, linguistic and inherently visual work? The films inevitably sway away from not ...

The discipline of medievalism has produced a great deal of scholarship acknowledging the "makers" of the Middle Ages: those who re-discovered the period from 500 to 1500 by engaging with its cultural works, seeking inspiration from them, or fantasizing about them. Yet such approaches - organized by time period, geography, or theme - often lack an overarching critical framework. This volume aims to provide such a framework, by calling into question the problematic yet commonly accepted voca...

A brilliant and companionable tour through all thirty-eight plays, Shakespeare After All is the perfect introduction to the bard by one of the country’s foremost authorities on his life and work.Drawing on her hugely popular lecture courses at Yale and Harvard over the past thirty years, Marjorie Garber offers passionate and revealing readings of the plays in chronological sequence, from The Two Gentlemen of Verona to The Two Noble Kinsmen. Supremely read...

Norse Mythology explores the magical myths and legends of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Viking-Age Greenland--outlining along the way the prehistoric tales and beliefs from these regions that have remained embedded in the imagination of the world. The book begins with an Introduction that helps put Scandinavian mythology in place in history, followed by a chapter that explains the meaning of mythic time, and a third section that presents in-depth explanations of each mythological te...

Explore the philosophical depths of Batman, Superman, Captain America, and your other favorite superheroesBehind the cool costumes, special powers, and unflagging determination to fight evil you’ll find fascinating philosophical questions and concerns deep in the hearts and minds of your favorite comic book heroes.Why doesn't Batman just kill the Joker and end everyone's misery? Does Peter Parker have a good life? What can Iron Man teach us about the role o...

Fantasy is a creation of the Enlightenment, and the recognition that excitement and wonder can be found in imagining impossible things. From the ghost stories of the Gothic to the zombies and vampires of twenty-first-century popular literature, from Mrs Radcliffe to Ms Rowling, the fantastic has been popular with readers. Since Tolkien and his many imitators, however, it has become a major publishing phenomenon. In this volume, critics and authors of fantasy look at its history since the E...

The most comprehensive sourcebook of Shakespeare's monologues ever available in one volume.A detailed guide to approaching Shakespearean text, Speak the Speech! contains everything an actor needs to select and prepare a Shakespeare monologue for classwork, auditions, or performance.Included herein are over 150 monologues. Each one is placed in context with a brief introduction, is carefully punctuated in the manner that best illustrates its meaning, ...

Enjoying poetry and novels can seem irrelevant and out of touch in a world of texting, tweeting, and blogging. But even in this technological age literature matters.Seasoned professor Louis Markos invites us into the great literary conversation that has been taking place throughout the ages and illuminates the wisdom to be found therein. He offers both a guide to studying and understanding literature, especially poetry, and an inspiring look at what it mea...

This is the first critical anthology of writings about memory in Renaissance England. Drawing together excerpts from more than seventy writers, poets, physicians, philosophers and preachers, and with over twenty illustrations, the anthology offers the reader a guided exploration of the arts of memory. The introduction outlines the context for the tradition of the memory arts from classical times to the Renaissance and is followed by extracts from writers on the art of memory in general, th...