The Ancient World In Alternative History And Counterfactual Fictions

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The Ancient World in Alternative History and Counterfactual Fictions

Author: Alberto J. Quiroga Puertas
language: en
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Release Date: 2024-08-22
Focusing in turn on history, powerful individuals, under-represented voices and the arts, the essays in this collection cover a wide variety of modern and contemporary narrative fiction from Jo Walton and L. Sprague De Camp to T. S. Chaudhry and Catherynne M. Valente. Chapters look into the question of chance versus determinism in the unfolding of historical events, the role individuals play in shaping a society or occasion, and the way art and literature symbolise important messages in counterfactual histories. They also show how uchronic narratives can take advantage of modern literary techniques to reveal new and relevant aspects of the past, giving voices to marginalised minorities and suppressed individuals of the ancient world. Counterfactual fiction and uchronic narratives have been largely up until now the domain of literary critics. However, these modes of literature are here analysed by scholars of Ancient History, Egyptology and Classics, shedding important new light on how cultures of the ancient world have been (and still are) perceived, and to what extent our conceptions of the past are used to explore alternate presents and futures. Alternate history entices the imagination of the public by suggesting hypothetical scenarios that never occurred, underlining a latent tension between reality and imagination, and between determinism and contingency. This interest has resulted in a growing number of publications that gauge the impact of what-if narratives, and this one is the first to give scholars of the ancient world centre-stage.
The Ancient World in Alternative History and Counterfactual Fictions

"Up until now the domain of literary critics, counterfactual fiction and uchronic narratives are here analysed by ancient historians and classicists, shedding important new light on how cultures of the ancient world are perceived now and to what extent our experience and perception of the past is used to explore alternate presents and futures. This interest has resulted in a growing number of publications that gauge the impact of what-if narratives, and this one is the first to give ancient historians the stage"--
The Persephone Myth in Young Adult Fiction

Author: Cristina Salcedo González
language: en
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Release Date: 2024-12-12
Investigating the widespread but understudied presence of the Persephone myth within 21st-century young adult literature, Cristina Salcedo González analyses six young adult novels which incorporate a reworking of this ancient Greek myth. Through the identification of mythic themes ('mythemes') and patterns within these novels, González shows that these works evoke the female life cycle and develop current perceptions of the female maturational experience. As a result, Salcedo González makes an important contribution in establishing the cultural significance of young adult literature in the world of classical reception. These novels, all written by women, also inflect or interpret the myth in ways influenced by their contemporary contexts, specifically the impact of the novels' target readership on the aspects of the myth that are either emphasised (e.g. Persephone's descent into the underworld; her existence there; and her re-ascent) or de-emphasised (e.g. the mourning and wanderings of Demeter). This book makes original methodological contributions – through its innovative dual perspective of myth criticism and classical reception – to our understanding of the academically neglected genre of young adult literature and the reception of the myth of Persephone. As a result, Salcedo González significantly contributes to establishing the cultural significance of young adult literature within the realm of classical reception.