The Supernatural Sublime
The Supernatural Sublime

Author: Raúl Rodríguez-Hernández

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2019-07-01

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 1496214242

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The Supernatural Sublime explores the long-neglected element of the supernatural in films from Spain and Mexico by focusing on the social and cultural contexts of their production and reception, their adaptations of codes and conventions for characters and plot, and their use of cinematic techniques to create the experience of emotion without explanation. Deploying the overarching concepts of the supernatural and the sublime, Raúl Rodríguez-Hernández and Claudia Schaefer detail the dovetailing of the unnatural and the experience of limitlessness associated with the sublime. The Supernatural Sublime embeds the films in the social histories of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Mexico and Spain, both of which made a forced leap into modernity after historical periods founded on official ideologies and circumscribed visions of the nation. Evoking Kant’s definition of the experience of the sublime, Rodríguez-Hernández and Schaefer concentrate on the unrepresentable and the contradictory that oppose purported universal truths and instead offer up illusion, deception, and imagination through cinema, itself a type of illusion: writing with light.

The Supernatural Sublime
The Supernatural Sublime

Author: Jack G. Voller

Publisher:

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 9780875801940

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"Voller reveals in Part 1 the way in which the psychological and narrative structures of the sublime, as elaborated by Edmund Burke and his contemporaries, gave Gothic fictions much of their characteristic shape and tone. He defines the Gothic mode in close readings of works by Radcliffe, Reeve, Lewis, and Brown. The Supernatural Sublime breaks new ground by establishing a classification schema for Gothic fictions, an anatomy based on the underlying structure of the sublime experience and its powerful influence on what can be called the metaphysical implications of Gothic supernaturalism." "In Part 2, Voller extends his examination of supernatural sublimity into the works of major Romantic authors on both sides of the Atlantic. He demonstrates that, while authors such as Coleridge, the Shelleys, Byron, Hawthorne, and Poe were familiar with Gothic supernaturalism, their use of the supernatural is not an adoption of Gothic conventions but a sophisticated critique of them. Influenced by Kant's idealist interpretation of sublimity, and rejecting what they understood to be the histrionic excesses of Gothic fiction, the Romantics elaborated a more psychologically astute and intellectually subtle supernaturalism that served as a foundation for later nineteenth-century supernaturalism."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Nature's Sublime
Nature's Sublime

Author: Robert S. Corrington

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 0739182137

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Nature's Sublime uses a radical new form of phenomenology to probe into the deepest traits of the human process in its individual, social, religious, and aesthetic dimensions. Starting with the selving process the essay describes the role of signs and symbols in intra and interpersonal communication. At the heart of the human use of signs is a creative tension between religions symbols and the novel symbols created in the various arts. A contrast is made between natural communities, which flatten out and reject novel forms of semiosis, and communities of interpretation, which welcomes creative and enriched signs and symbols. The normative claim is made that religious sign/symbol systems have a tendency toward tribalism and violence, while the various spheres of the aesthetic are comparatively non-tribal, or even deliberatively anti-tribal. The concept/experience of beauty and the sublime is meant to replace that of religious revelation. The sublime is not merely an internal mode of attunement, contra Kant, but comes from the very depths of nature in the potencies of nature naturing.

Into the Sublime
Into the Sublime

Author: Kate A. Boorman

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company (BYR)

Published: 2022-07-26

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 1250191696

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"Gripping and breathless, Into the Sublime is equal parts terrifying, claustrophobic, psychological, and cunning." —Wendy Heard, author of She's Too Pretty to Burn and Dead End Girls A new YA psychological thriller from Kate A. Boorman, author of What We Buried, about four teenage girls who descend into a dangerous underground cave system in search of a lake of local legend, said to reveal your deepest fears. When the cops arrive, only a few things are clear: - Four girls entered a dangerous cave. - Three of them came out alive. - Two of them were rushed to the hospital. - And one is soaked in blood and ready to talk. Amelie Desmarais' story begins believably enough: Four girls from a now-defunct thrill-seeking group planned an epic adventure to find a lake that Colorado locals call "The Sublime." Legend has it that the lake has the power to change things for those who risk—and survive—its cavernous depths. They each had their reasons for going. For Amelie, it was a promise kept to her beloved cousin, who recently suffered a tragic accident during one of the group’s dares. But as her account unwinds, and the girls’ personalities and motives are drawn, things get complicated. Amelie is hardly the thrill-seeking type, and it appears she’s not the only one with the ability to deceive. Worse yet, Amelie is covered in someone's blood, but whose exactly? And where's the fourth girl? Is Amelie spinning a tale to cover her guilt? Or was something inexplicable waiting for the girls down there? Amelie's the only one with answers, and she's insisting on an explanation that is more horror-fantasy than reality. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in between? After all, strange things inhabit dark places. And sometimes we bring the dark with us.

The Supernatural in Gothic Fiction
The Supernatural in Gothic Fiction

Author: Robert F. Geary

Publisher: Edwin Mellen Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 9780773491649

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While the numinous and heavily psychological aspects of the Gothic have received serious attention, studies do not tend to examine the relation of the Gothic supernatural to the very different backgrounds of 18th-century and Victorian belief. This study examines the rise of the form, the artistic difficulties experienced by its early practitioners, and the transformation of the original problem-ridden Gothic works into the successful Victorian tales of unearthly terror. In doing so, this study makes a distinct contribution to our grasp of the Gothic and of the links between literature and religion.

A Place of Darkness
A Place of Darkness

Author: Kendall R. Phillips

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2018-03-01

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1477315519

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Horror is one of the most enduringly popular genres in cinema. The term “horror film” was coined in 1931 between the premiere of Dracula and the release of Frankenstein, but monsters, ghosts, demons, and supernatural and horrific themes have been popular with American audiences since the emergence of novelty kinematographic attractions in the late 1890s. A Place of Darkness illuminates the prehistory of the horror genre by tracing the way horrific elements and stories were portrayed in films prior to the introduction of the term “horror film.” Using a rhetorical approach that examines not only early films but also the promotional materials for them and critical responses to them, Kendall R. Phillips argues that the portrayal of horrific elements was enmeshed in broader social tensions around the emergence of American identity and, in turn, American cinema. He shows how early cinema linked monsters, ghosts, witches, and magicians with Old World superstitions and beliefs, in contrast to an American way of thinking that was pragmatic, reasonable, scientific, and progressive. Throughout the teens and twenties, Phillips finds, supernatural elements were almost always explained away as some hysterical mistake, humorous prank, or nefarious plot. The Great Depression of the 1930s, however, constituted a substantial upheaval in the system of American certainty and opened a space for the reemergence of Old World gothic within American popular discourse in the form of the horror genre, which has terrified and thrilled fans ever since.

Weird Sister
Weird Sister

Author: Kate Pullinger

Publisher: Kate Pullinger Books

Published: 2014-04-05

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 0992851955

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Agnes Samuel is an American, beautiful, witty, cool, the kind of woman people remember. She arrives among the respectable citizens of Warboys like a cat among the pigeons. Before long she has insinuated herself into the affections of the sleepy Fenland village and into the heart of the ancient Throckmorton family, a family that harbours a dark secret. Nobody remembers another Agnes Samuel from long ago, a frightened girl betrayed by her wealthy neighbours and hanged as a witch. Weird Sister is a chilling tale of revenge across generations that will send shivers your spine. Praise for Weird Sister: “A perfect, gruesome, little tale” Independent on Sunday “Daphne du Maurier retold by Margaret Atwood” Times Literary Supplement “Pullinger has created a thrilling combination of Rebecca and Mrs Danvers” Independent “Pullinger’s exercise in gothic fantasy is as seductively clever as its heroine." Sunday Times “The real possibility that, this time, good will not overcome evil keeps you reading.” Daily Telegraph “This is a bewitching yarn, perfect reading for a dark winter’s night with the wind howling at the door.” Daily Mail

Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea-Devils
Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea-Devils

Author: James Lovegrove

Publisher: Titan Books (US, CA)

Published: 2018-11-20

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 1783295988

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The stunning new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Age of Odin, in which the worlds of Arthur Conan Doyle and H.P. Lovecraft collide. It is the autumn of 1910, and for fifteen long years Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson have battled R'lluhloig, the Hidden Mind that was once Professor James Moriarty. Europe is creeping inexorably towards war, and a more cosmic conflict is nearing its zenith, as in a single night all the most eminent members of the Diogenes Club die horribly, seemingly by their own hands. Holmes suspects it is the handiwork of a German spy working for R'lluhloig, but his search for vengeance costs an old friend his life. The companions retreat to Holmes's farm on the Sussex Downs, and it is not long before a client comes calling. Three young women have disappeared from the nearby town of Newford, and the locals have no doubt who is responsible. For legend has it that strange amphibious creatures dwell in a city on the seabed, coming ashore every few centuries to take fresh captives. As Holmes and Watson seek out the terrifying interlopers, the scene is set for the final battle that will bring them face to face with the Sussex Sea-Devils, and perhaps with Cthulhu himself...

Modern Spanish Women as Agents of Change
Modern Spanish Women as Agents of Change

Author: Jennifer Smith

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2018-12-14

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1684480345

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This volume brings together cutting-edge research on modern Spanish women as writers, activists, and embodiments of cultural change, and simultaneously honors Maryellen Bieder’s invaluable scholarly contribution to the field. The essays are innovative in their consideration of lesser-known women writers, focus on women as political activists, and use of post-colonialism, queer theory, and spatial theory to examine the period from the Enlightenment until World War II. The contributors study women as agents and representations of social change in a variety of genres, including short stories, novels, plays, personal letters, and journalistic pieces. Canonical authors such as Emilia Pardo Bazán, Leopoldo Alas “Clarín,” and Carmen de Burgos are considered alongside lesser known writers and activists such as María Rosa Gálvez, Sofía Tartilán, and Caterina Albert i Paradís. The critical analyses are situated within their specific socio-historical context, and shed new light on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Spanish literature, history, and culture. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

The Religious Sublime
The Religious Sublime

Author: David B. Morris

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2014-07-15

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 081316379X

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This perceptive, carefully documented study challenges the traditional assumption that the supernatural virtually disappeared from eighteenth-century poetry as a result of the growing rationalistic temper of the late seventeenth century. Mr. Morris shows that the religious poetry of eighteenth-century England, while not equaling the brilliant work of seventeenth-century and Romantic writers, does reveal a vital and serious effort to create a new kind of sacred poetry which would rival the sublimity of Milton and of the Bible itself. Tracing the major varieties of religious poetry written throughout the century—by major figures and by their now vanished contemporaries—the author explains how later poets and critics made significant departures from the established norms. These changes in religious poetry thus become a valuable means of understanding the shift from a neoclassical to a Romantic theory of literature.