Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds: Ways of Telling the Self (Clarendon Lectures in English) [Hardcover]

Marina Warner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 21, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0198187262 | ISBN-13: 978-0198187264

Metamorphosis is a dynamic principle of creation, vital to natural processes of generation and evolution, growth and decay, yet it also threatens personal identity if human beings are subject to a continual process of bodily transformation. Shape-shifting also belongs in the landscape of magic, witchcraft, and wonder, and enlivens classical mythology, early modern fairy tales and uncanny fictions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds, acclaimed novelist and critic Marina Warner explores the metaphorical power of metamorphoses in the evocation of human personality. Beginning with Ovid's great poem, The Metamorphoses, as the founding text of the metamorphic tradition, she takes us on a journey of exploration, into the fantastic art of Hieronymous Bosch, the legends of the Taino people, the life cycle of the butterfly, the myth of Leda and the Swan, the genealogy of the Zombie, the pantomime of Aladdin, the haunting of doppelgangers, the coming of photography, and the late fiction of Lewis Carroll. Beautifully illustrated and elegantly written, Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds is sure to appeal to all readers interested in mythology, art, and literature.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[A] piercing, playful use of ideas.... Warner moves with a high-wire walker's assurance, from Ovid, Bosch and Dante to James Hogg's 'Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner,' Stevenson's 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' and on to Nabokov's 'Lolita' and even Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials.' In addition, she makes several seductive moves toward that enormous threat to intellectual history, the movies.... Especially when looking at Bosch, Warner sees something like fluency in the rampant, exhilarating way forms can find new shapes. This is Warner at her playful best."--The New York Times Book Review

"In this typically agile meditation, [Warner] rewardingly charts shifting images of the imagination itself.... What makes Fantastic Metamorphoses remarkable is its dashing investigation of imagination."--The Observer

"Rules of thumb: (1) genuinely scholarly books are no delight to read, and (2) "antiquarian" studies do not illuminate the life and culture of (post)modern readers. Exception: Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds.... This irresistibly styled and splendidly illustrated treatment of generation, evolution, growth, and decay touches most of the mythological--and many of the literary-artistic--bases, but goes beyond them to encompass photography, cultural anthropology, folklore, and lepidoptery."--Virginia Quarterly Review

About the Author

Marina Warner is a prize-winning novelist, cultural historian, and critic. Her most recent novel is The Leto Bundle. Among her acclaimed non-fiction works are From the Beast to the Blonde and No Go the Bogeyman. She lives in London.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 284 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (November 21, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198187262
• ISBN-13: 978-0198187264
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,901,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Kaleidoscopic study of metamorphosis, March 6, 2003

By 

Helenium (Baltimore, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds: Ways of Telling the Self (Clarendon Lectures in English) (Hardcover)

The book tackles the idea of metamorphoses as a theme in art and literature. Stirred into the mix are mythology, encounters between Europeans and tribal peoples in the New World and how those encounters affected art and literature produced in the Western tradition, meanwhile relating all these to the idea of personal identity. Among the works discussed in detail are Ovid's Metamorphoses, Apuleis' The Golden Ass, Hieronymous Bosch's painting The Garden of Earthly Delights, some Renaissance-era graphic sexual depictions of Leda and the Swan, Maria Merian's late 17th century natural history studies of butterflies, and then onto a discussion of zombies, Coleridge, Jean Rhys, Kafka, Nabokov, photography, Lewis Carroll and more. This may all sound like heavy going, but Warner writes for the layperson, and you need not have read the primary sources to follow her reasoning. (But her discussion and excerpts made me want to check out a copy of Ovid and read it for myself!) The artwork is illustrated by plates, some in color.

The book is an ambitious attempt to raise issues more than come to sweeping conclusions, with chapters titled Mutating, Hatching, Splitting, Doubling. Those interested in Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, and other writers on comparative mythology should find it interesting. The chapters on Mutating and Hatching were more compelling to me as someone with a special interest in art and mythology. Fans of 19th century literature, especially Gothic literature, may prefer Splitting and Doubling. And it is blessedly free of any type of academic jargon. Indeed, Warner also conveys the sheer enjoyment of reading or looking at the material she discusses.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A well written work, March 11, 2003

By A Customer

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This review is from: Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds: Ways of Telling the Self (Clarendon Lectures in English) (Hardcover)

Marina Warner is an amazing scholar and teacher. In this book, she begins with the Metamorphoses of Ovid, and continues with other changes in the human spirit, in both literary and natural history. The chapter on zombies is particularly relevant to her novel Indigo; the explication of the Greek psyche is familiar ground, but well done. The only flaw in this brilliant work is the continual return to Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights as an allegory of life. Her enthusiasm for the painting does not match her vast knowledge of classical and popular literature. However, I recommend this book highly as a helpful tool to any student of the humanities.