Name: Once upon a Time
SKU: 1-84718-684-X
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Once upon a Time

Myth, Fairy Tales and Legends in Margaret Atwood’s Writings

Edited By: Sarah A. Appleton

£29.99

Essays by influential scholars explore Margaret Atwood’s use of myth, fairy tales, and archetypal narratives to illuminate her fiction and poetry. This collection demonstrates how Atwood revisions old stories, creating a familiar yet unique reading experience.

While it is often acknowledged that Margaret Atwood's novels are rife with allusions from the oral tradition of myth, legends, fables, and fairy tales, the…

While it is often acknowledged that Margaret Atwood’s novels are rife with allusions from the oral tradition of myth, legends, fables, and fairy tales, the implications of her liberal usage bear study. The essays in this volume have been written by some of the most influential Margaret Atwood scholars internationally, each exploring Atwood’s use of primal, indeed archetypal, narratives to illuminate her fiction and poetry. These essays interact with all types of such narratives, from fairy tales and legends, to Greek, Roman, Biblical, and pagan mythologies, to contemporary processes of myth and tale creation. And, as the works in this collection demonstrate, Atwood’s use of myths and fairy tales allows for an abundance of old, yet fresh material for contemporary readers. By reconciling, yet by also revisioning, the archetypal motifs, characters, and narratives, Atwood’s writings present a familiar, yet unique, reading experience.

SARAH A. APPLETON has taught seminars on Margaret Atwood and other women writers. She is the author of The Bitch Is Back: Wicked Women in Literature (SIU, 2000) and, with Mica Howe, co-editor of He Said, She Says: An RSVP to the Male Text (Farleigh-Dickinson, 2000). Professor Appleton has also published essays on Margaret Atwood and many others in such journals as Margaret Atwood Studies and African-American Review. She is currently writing one book on the fates of male and female narcissists in literature and editing another collection of essays. She is teaching in the English program at Old Dominion University.