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John Crowley’s New Fantastic Space: Reconstructing the Realm of Faerie in Little, Big
Title
John Crowley’s New Fantastic Space: Reconstructing the Realm of Faerie in Little, Big.
Creator
Beveridge, Pami, Martin, Thomas L., Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description
John Crowley’s Little, Big is an innovative piece of fantasy writing. This thesis aims to prove that Crowley’s innovation lays the groundwork for new avenues in which fantastic space can be manipulated and constructed. Deep study in Euclidean geometry, modern physics, and occult astronomy reveal a new fantastic space, and a new concept for the threshold of Faerie. Crowley’s fantastic space is constructed as infundibular; with layers of concentricities that funnels his characters to their...
Show moreJohn Crowley’s Little, Big is an innovative piece of fantasy writing. This thesis aims to prove that Crowley’s innovation lays the groundwork for new avenues in which fantastic space can be manipulated and constructed. Deep study in Euclidean geometry, modern physics, and occult astronomy reveal a new fantastic space, and a new concept for the threshold of Faerie. Crowley’s fantastic space is constructed as infundibular; with layers of concentricities that funnels his characters to their final destination of self-actualization and the heaven-like realm of Faerie. Crowley amalgamates the boundaries of Faerie and the primary world in an unusual fashion that is noted as Coalesced Fantasy: a fantasy wherein there is ultimately no dichotomy between Faerie and the primary world, as there is no division between the fantastic and science. This deliberate aim to blend boundaries is to establish an All in One theory. Faerie and the primary world oppose each other as antithetical conical space, and Crowley’s Edgewood house serves as the threshold to allow man to access the divinity and vastness of Faerie. Faerie (Divinity/macrocosm) and man (microcosm) exist in and amongst one another; everything is connected and every path intersects, spinning on a hyperbolic plane in this new, quantifiable space.
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Date Issued
2016
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004570, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004570
Subject Headings
Crowley, John,--1942-.--Little, big--Criticism and interpretation., Fantasy fiction, American., Fantastic literature--Criticism and interpretation., Space perception.
Format
Document (PDF)
Theorizing the Goddess in Feminist Mythopoeic Fantasy
Title
Theorizing the Goddess in Feminist Mythopoeic Fantasy.
Creator
Taylor, Taryne Jade, Martin, Thomas L., Florida Atlantic University
Abstract/Description
In my thesis, I examine the function and treatment of goddesses in six modern feminist mythopoeic fantasy novels by Y olen, Shinn, and Harris. In these novels, the goddesses and their worshippers serve as the agents of socio-political change within the secondary world, inducing changes that end with the ultimate transformation of oppressive social structures. Acknowledging these goddesses and incorporating them into the fabric of communal life, the protagonists, and ultimately entire...
Show moreIn my thesis, I examine the function and treatment of goddesses in six modern feminist mythopoeic fantasy novels by Y olen, Shinn, and Harris. In these novels, the goddesses and their worshippers serve as the agents of socio-political change within the secondary world, inducing changes that end with the ultimate transformation of oppressive social structures. Acknowledging these goddesses and incorporating them into the fabric of communal life, the protagonists, and ultimately entire societies, are able transcend issues of gender, race, ethnicity, class, and religion, in order to create a peaceful and prosperous society. These novels work through many of the issues troubling modern day feminist theorists and make important contributions to the discourse of feminist spirituality and feminist theory as a whole. Extrapolating both a theory and praxis from the texture of these fantasy narratives, I suggest that these stories offer a way to transcend dichotomous thinking and escape the current stagnation of spirituality based approaches to feminism.
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Date Issued
2008
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000968
Subject Headings
Myth in literature, Feminism in literature, Fantasy fiction, American--Criticism and interpretation, Spirituality in literature
Format
Document (PDF)
The sui generis in Charles G. Finney’s The Circus Of Dr. Lao
Title
The sui generis in Charles G. Finney’s The Circus Of Dr. Lao.
Creator
White, Adam J., Martin, Thomas L., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description
Charles G. Finney’s 1936 novel The Circus of Dr. Lao was published to enthusiastic reviews, but fell into relative obscurity shortly thereafter. Since its publication, it has been the subject of one peer-reviewed critical essay, a number of reviews, one non-peer-reviewed essay, and a master’s thesis. It was published in a world where the fantastic and unique found only barren desert soil, with no scholarly tradition for the fantastic, nor a widely receptive lay audience for something truly...
Show moreCharles G. Finney’s 1936 novel The Circus of Dr. Lao was published to enthusiastic reviews, but fell into relative obscurity shortly thereafter. Since its publication, it has been the subject of one peer-reviewed critical essay, a number of reviews, one non-peer-reviewed essay, and a master’s thesis. It was published in a world where the fantastic and unique found only barren desert soil, with no scholarly tradition for the fantastic, nor a widely receptive lay audience for something truly unique, or sui generis. The concept of the sui generis, meaning “of its own kind,” provides a useful lens for examining the novel, as Finney develops not only creatures, but people, which are truly of their own kind, borrowing from existing mythologies, traits of humanity, and aspects of nature, recombining them in a singular way which resists classification.
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Date Issued
2013
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA0004073
Subject Headings
Fantasy fiction, American -- Criticism and interpretation, Finney, Charles G. -- (Charles Grandison) -- 1905-1984 -- Circus of Dr. Lao -- Criticism and interpretation, Individualism (Philosophy), Knowledge, Theory of, in literature, Meaning (Philosophy), Symbolism in literature
Format
Document (PDF)
Charles Finney's The Circus of Dr. Lao
Title
Charles Finney's The Circus of Dr. Lao: an epistemological fantasy.
Creator
Creed, Daniel B., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description
Charles Finney's The Circus of Dr. Lao, published in 1936, has been widely read in the last eighty years and has influenced significant authors in the field of fantasy, yet it has been examined in just three critical studies in that time. This study examines Finney's novel as an epistemological fantasy, a heretofore undefined term that precipitates an epistemological crisis of knowing and certainty. The novel opens a way for fantasy literature to establish itself in a Modernist landscape by...
Show moreCharles Finney's The Circus of Dr. Lao, published in 1936, has been widely read in the last eighty years and has influenced significant authors in the field of fantasy, yet it has been examined in just three critical studies in that time. This study examines Finney's novel as an epistemological fantasy, a heretofore undefined term that precipitates an epistemological crisis of knowing and certainty. The novel opens a way for fantasy literature to establish itself in a Modernist landscape by foregrounding the marvelous and extraordinary knowledge that lies just outside the realm of human experience. Finney presents Dr. Lao's circus as a surrogate model of success, and while many of the characters in the novel are unable to accept the truth offered them by the beings of fantasy, the author uses their experiences to satirize the complacencies he witnessed upon returning to America from the Far East in the 1930s.
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Date Issued
2010
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/2683122
Subject Headings
Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Knowledge, Theory of, in literature, Fantasy fiction, American, Criticism and interpretation, Postmodernism (Literature)
Format
Document (PDF)