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Women Writers and the Occult in Literature and Culture: Female Lucifers, Priestesses, and Witches
Contributor(s): Wallraven, Miriam (Author)
ISBN: 1138824186     ISBN-13: 9781138824188
Publisher: Routledge
OUR PRICE:   $180.50  
Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats
Published: June 2015
Qty:
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
- Literary Criticism | European - General
- Literary Criticism | Women Authors
Dewey: 820.9
LCCN: 2015005115
Series: Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature
Physical Information: 0.7" H x 6.1" W x 9.1" (1.00 lbs) 236 pages
Themes:
- Sex & Gender - Feminine
- Cultural Region - British Isles
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

Examining the intersection of occult spirituality, text, and gender, this book provides a compelling analysis of the occult revival in literature from the 1880s through the course of the twentieth century. Bestselling novels such as The Da Vinci Code play with magic and the fascination of hidden knowledge, while occult and esoteric subjects have become very visible in literature during the twentieth century. This study analyses literature by women occultists such as Alice Bailey, Dion Fortune, and Starhawk, and revisits texts with occult motifs by canonical authors such as Sylvia Townsend Warner, Leonora Carrington, and Angela Carter. This material, which has never been analysed in a literary context, covers influential movements such as Theosophy, Spiritualism, Golden Dawn, Wicca, and Goddess spirituality. Wallraven engages with the question of how literature functions as the medium for creating occult worlds and powerful identities, particularly the female Lucifer, witch, priestess, and Goddess. Based on the concept of ancient wisdom, the occult in literature also incorporates topical discourses of the twentieth century, including psychoanalysis, feminism, pacifism, and ecology. Hence, as an ever-evolving discursive universe, it presents alternatives to religious truth claims that often lead to various forms of fundamentalism that we encounter today. This book offers a ground-breaking approach to interpreting the forms and functions of occult texts for scholars and students of literary and cultural studies, religious studies, sociology, and gender studies.