The origins of Arthurian romance will always be a hotly disputed subject. The great moments of the legends belong partly to dimly-remembered history, partly to the poets' imagination down the ages, whether Welsh, Breton, French or German. Yet there is another element behind the stories which goes back deeper and further, and which is even more difficult to pinpoint, the traces of ancient pagan religion. We know so little for certain about Celtic religion that any attempt to document these recollections of prehistoric and mythological material is a hazardous undertaking. However, John Darrah makes a persuasive case for the existence of these underlying themes, both in terms of heroes who have inherited the attributes of gods, and of episodes which reflect ancient religious rituals. His careful study of the thematic relationships of many little-known episodes of the romances and his unravelling of the relative geography of Arthurian Britain as portrayed in the romances will be valuable even to readers who may beg to differ with his final conclusions. His most original contribution to an unravelling of a pagan Arthurian past lies in his appropriation of the fascinating evidence of standing stones and pagan cultic sites. The magical attributes of stones are exemplified in prehistoric standing stones, the real counterparts of the perrons of the French romances. This is dark and difficult territory, but certain events in the Arthurian cycle, which take place on and around Salisbury Plain, have correspondences with known prehistoric events. Building on these elusive clues, and tracing a range of sites around the river Severn and south Wales, John Darrah has added a significant new dimension to the search for the sources of England's great epic, the legends of Arthur and his court.
Setting / LocationLondon & UK
Story EraModern Era
Protagonist / CorePaganism in Arthurian romance Lead Character
Sgt. Don Malarkey takes us not only into the battles fought from Normandy to Germany, but into the heart and mind of a soldier who beat the odds to become an elite paratrooper, and lost his best friend during the nightmarish engagement at Bastogne. Drafted in 1942, Malarkey became one of the one-in-six soldiers who earned their Eagle wings. He went to England in 1943 to provide cover on the ground for the largest amphibious military attack in history: Operation Overlord. In the darkness of D-day morning, Malarkey parachuted into France and within days was awarded a Bronze Star for his heroism in battle. He fought for twenty-three days in Normandy, nearly eighty in Holland, thirty-nine in Bastogne, and nearly thirty more in and near Haugenau, France, and the Ruhr pocket in Germany. This is his epic story of how an adventurous kid from Oregon became a leader of men.--From publisher description.
One of the leading choreographers in ballet over the last half century, Antony Tudor is considered the most lyrical and emotionally powerful of modern ballet masters, acclaimed for his imaginative use of music and his commitment to dramatic plot. Comparable in achievement to George Balanchine and Frederick Ashton, Tudor created over sixty ballets, including his masterpieces Jardin aux Lilas, Dark Elegies, Romeo and Juliet, and the incomparable Pillar of Fire. He was instrumental in the establishment of the American Ballet Theater and its rise to prominence as one of the world's great ballet companies. Now Judith Chazin-Bennahum, an accomplished author and a former ballerina and student of Tudor's, steps forward to deliver the first comprehensive, ballet by ballet examination of Tudor's choreography. Meticulously researched, lively and insightful, The Ballets of Antony Tudor: Studies in Psyche and Satire opens the way for dance aficionados to better appreciate and preserve the artistic legacy of one of this century's major innovators. Long-ago performances come thrillingly to life, from Tudor's fledgling efforts with Marie Rambert's Ballet Club in London, to his tenure as a founding member and principal choreographer of ABT, to his subsequent career as a contributor to the New York City Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, and as a celebrated teacher at Juilliard. Chazin-Bennahum draws extensively from her interviews with Tudor before his death in 1987, and her own experience in his famous classes and rehearsals. Her superbly documented research uncovers program notes, reviews, rare photographs and stills of original productions, and interviews with scores of men and women who played a part in Tudor's achievement. Choreographers and dancers from Agnes de Mille and Nora Kaye to Jerome Robbins and Gelsey Kirkland discuss their debt to Tudor, and his role in the evolution of dance. While not a biography in the traditional sense, the book does shed fascinating light on the private life of Antony Tudor. He was born William Cook, the son of a butcher in London's East End, in 1908, and Chazin-Bennahum's analysis reveals how deeply his life informed his art. "I never do a ballet that does not concern the bourgeoisie," Tudor once said. Of course, Tudor's experience was shaped by more than class: Like Picasso, writes the author, Tudor was a child of our century, reacting to its wars, its destruction and its persecution of women and children in the language he knew best. Original and engaging, The Ballets of Antony Tudor brilliantly explicates the hidden desire, brutality, violence towards women, isolation, and unrequited love that are common themes in Tudor's ballets, illuminating the rich psychological nuance and intimacy of gesture with which he transformed his art.
The execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family at the hands of revolutionaries in 1918 is one of the pivotal events of the 20th century, an event that brought the 300-year rule of the House of Romanov to a brutal and tragic end and set the tone for the Stalinist atrocities that would follow. The truth behind these murders remained long buried under more than seventy years of myth, legend, and speculation. Then, in a sensational biography that could not have been written before glasnost, noted Russian historian Edvard Radzinsky unearthed solutions to many of the questions that had remained unanswered since the terrible events in Ekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918. Mining sources long unavailable -- including firsthand accounts of the slaying -- he creates both a fascinating portrait of the monarch and a minute-by-minute account of his terrifying last days. Included is documentation linking the order of execution directly to Lenin, as well as the suggestion that two family members may have survived the ordeal. Included, too, is the testimony of ordinary Russians who at last felt free to contribute their own recollections, documents, and handed-down secrets. Radzinsky weaves together scores of firsthand accounts into a haunting, epic narrative. The Last Tsar is an important and momentous work, one that will stand as the definitive account of the terrible last days of one of Europe's greatest dynasties. - Adapted from dust jacket.
From one of America's most brilliant critics and cultural commentators comes a long-awaited collection of penetrating autobiographical essays and a riveting short memoir, novelistic in style and ambition, about the pathos, comedy, and devastation of early love.Stanford professor and longtime contributor to the London Review of Books, the Atlantic, the New Republic, Slate, and other publications, Terry Castle is widely admired for the wit, panache, intellectual breadth, and emotional honesty of her writings on life, literature, and art. Now, at long last, she has collected some of the more personal of her recent essays in a single volume. Several pieces here are already acknowledged classics: "Desperately Seeking Susan," the celebrated account she wrote in 2005 of her droll and somewhat bittersweet friendship with Susan Sontag; "My Heroin Christmas," a darkly humorous examination of addiction, her family and stepsiblings, and the late, great jazz saxophonist Art Pepper; and the picaresque "Travels with My Mother," a rollicking travelogue that brings together Castle's complicated relationship with her mother, lesbianism, art, and the difficult yet transcendent work of the painter Agnes Martin.At the center of the collection, however, is the title work, published here for the first time: a candid and wrenching exploration of Castle's relationship, during her graduate school years, with a female professor. At once hilarious and rueful, it is a pitch-perfect recollection of the fiascos of youth: how we come to own (or disown) our sexuality; how we understand (or don't) the emotional needs and wishes of others; how the ordeals of desire can prompt a lifelong search for self-understanding.In this account of a sentimental education, as in all the essays in The Professor and Other Writings, Terry Castle reveals herself as a truly remarkable writer: utterly distinctive, wise, frank, and fearless.
Paganism in Arthurian romance by John Darrah | Literally Just Books
