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Cargando... Old friends : essays in epistolary parodypor Andrew Lang
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Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a prolific Scots man of letters, a poet, novelist, literary critic and contributor to anthropology. He now is best known as the collector of folk and fairy tales. As a journalist, poet, critic and historian, he soon made a reputation as one of the ablest and most versatile writers of the day. Lang was one of the founders of the study of Psychical Research, and his other writings on anthropology include The Book of Dreams and Ghosts (1897), Magic and Religion (1901) and The Secret of the Totem (1905). He was a Homeric scholar of conservative views. Other works include Homer and the Epic (1893); a prose translation of The Homeric Hymns (1899), with literary and mythological essays in which he draws parallels between Greek myths and other mythologies; and Homer and his Age (1906). He also wrote Ballades in Blue China (1880) and Rhymes la Mode (1884). Andrew Lang's Fairy Books are a twelve-book series of fairy tale collections. Although Andrew Lang did not collect the stories himself from the oral tradition, the extent of his sources (who had collected them originally), made them an immensely influential collection, especially as he used foreign-language sources, giving many of these tales their first appearance in English. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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It is one thing to have the idea, another to have the skill to pull it off convincingly. And in this, Lang demonstrates that he is a master stylist who can parody the most disparate voices, from the Rawlinson-inflected ancient historian Herodotus to the ludicrously vulgar Mrs. Gamp. Lang aids his project by his particular affinity for comic figures, rather than the larger-than-life heroes, although the Count of Monte Christo makes an appearance, as does Fielding’s Tom Jones, the victim of a mean prank by Richardson’s Lovelace. That prank finds its burlesque counterpart when Catherine Morland travels from Northanger Abbey to visit Mr. Rochester, where she encounters the strange governess, Jane Eyre.
Each reader will find his own favorites among these letters. I savored that the progress of the pilgrim Christian is interrupted when he comes across Izaak Walton fishing. It probably helps to have read the books from which Lang draws his characters, but I even enjoyed those drawn from books I haven’t read.
Lang defends the prevalence of comic figures in his choices in his preface, underlining the importance of humor in making a character memorable. He writes: “You cannot know Oliver Twist as you know the Dodger and Charlie Bates.”
Movies, of course, have in the last few years taken to this kind of literary mash-up, witness, for example, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. But Lang came up with the idea first and carried it out well. ( )