ENGLISH

Lure of the Arcane: The Literature of Cult and Conspiracy

By Theodore , Ziolkowski

Book information

Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press
Year
2013
ISBN
1-4214-0958-5, 978-1-4214-0958-0, 978-1-4214-0959-7, 1-4214-0959-3
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
2 MB (2257432 bytes)
Pages
248\245
Time added
2015-12-23 22:00:00

Description

Fascination with the arcane is a driving force in this comprehensive survey of conspiracy fiction. Theodore Ziolkowski traces the evolution of cults, orders, lodges, secret societies, and conspiracies through various literary manifestations―drama, romance, epic, novel, opera―down to the thrillers of the twenty-first century. Lure of the Arcane considers Euripides’s Bacchae, Andreae’s Chymical Wedding, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum, among other seminal works. Mimicking the genre’s quest-driven narrative arc, the reader searches for the significance of conspiracy fiction and is rewarded with the author’s cogent reflections in the final chapter. After much investigation, Ziolkowski reinforces Umberto Eco’s notion that the most powerful secret, the magnetic center of conspiracy fiction, is in fact "a secret without content."

Similar books