Event Title

Session 2-B: George MacDonald and His Literary Companions

Location

Taylor University, Rupp 205

Start Date

30-5-2008 10:15 AM

Description

"Imbruted Souls in Milton and MacDonald" - Larry E. Fink

Beginning with classical literature, the motif of humans being turned into animals has been common (Odysseus; men transformed by Circe, some of the stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses). In English literature, as early as Chaucer we find mentions of a time when “Beestes and brides couden speke and singe.” As a rule, talking animals appear in stories of an innocent time or in stories for children, fulfilling the wish that pets and wild friends could join fully in our play. The effect is nostalgic, humorous, comic, or simply charming. However, when humans become animalized, moral degeneration is usually the theme, and horror the tone. George MacDonald regularly quotes or alludes to Milton. One of his most compelling characters, Lilith, owes much to Milton’s Satan, as I have argued in another paper. Here, I will explore Milton’s concept of the brute – the animal – in contrast to human nature, both created good as portrayed in Paradise Lost, and consider possible connections between Milton’s Comus and MacDonald’s Curdie stories, particularly how brutish behavior turns people – outwardly or inwardly – into animals. Finally, I will examine “The Adventure of Eustace” in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

"David Elginbrod" as a Prototype of the Wingfold Trilogy in Connection with Coleridge and a Joan Drakes' Case and Its Influence Upon a Certain Victorian Novelist" - Miho Yamaguchi

"George MacDonald and Oscar Wilde: Two Victorian Nonconformists" - Laura Stanifer

Event Type

Paper

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COinS
 
May 30th, 10:15 AM

Session 2-B: George MacDonald and His Literary Companions

Taylor University, Rupp 205

"Imbruted Souls in Milton and MacDonald" - Larry E. Fink

Beginning with classical literature, the motif of humans being turned into animals has been common (Odysseus; men transformed by Circe, some of the stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses). In English literature, as early as Chaucer we find mentions of a time when “Beestes and brides couden speke and singe.” As a rule, talking animals appear in stories of an innocent time or in stories for children, fulfilling the wish that pets and wild friends could join fully in our play. The effect is nostalgic, humorous, comic, or simply charming. However, when humans become animalized, moral degeneration is usually the theme, and horror the tone. George MacDonald regularly quotes or alludes to Milton. One of his most compelling characters, Lilith, owes much to Milton’s Satan, as I have argued in another paper. Here, I will explore Milton’s concept of the brute – the animal – in contrast to human nature, both created good as portrayed in Paradise Lost, and consider possible connections between Milton’s Comus and MacDonald’s Curdie stories, particularly how brutish behavior turns people – outwardly or inwardly – into animals. Finally, I will examine “The Adventure of Eustace” in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

"David Elginbrod" as a Prototype of the Wingfold Trilogy in Connection with Coleridge and a Joan Drakes' Case and Its Influence Upon a Certain Victorian Novelist" - Miho Yamaguchi

"George MacDonald and Oscar Wilde: Two Victorian Nonconformists" - Laura Stanifer