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When the Dead Rise

Narratives of the Revenant, from the Middle Ages to the Present Day

Christian Livermore author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published:16th Jan '21

Should be back in stock very soon

When the Dead Rise cover

A survey of the motif of the revenant, showing how medieval themes and motifs persist today. The proliferation of books and films about the "undead", those literally returning from the grave, in modern popular culture has been commented on as a recent phenomenon, but it is in fact a storytelling tradition going back more than a millennium. It drew on and was influenced by Christian eschatology, gathered momentum in medieval ecclesiastical chronicles, such as those written by Caesarius of Heisterbach, and then migrated into imaginative literature - famously in John Lydgate's Dance of Death - and art. But why did revenant stories and imagery take such a hold in the Middle Ages? And why has that fascination held on into today's world? This book offers a history of these revenant narratives, demonstrating how modern horror is haunted by past literature and exploring the motif of the risen dead as a focus of cultural anxiety and literary effort. The author examines the long arc of revenant tales from antiquity and the Middle Ages through the Reformation and into modernity, tracing their uncanny similarities and laying bare the rich traditions of narrative, theme, motif, supernatural belief and eschatological fears and preoccupations.

[T]his book remains an original and thought-provoking study of a hitherto under-researched topic. -- Folklore

ISBN: 9781843845768

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 392g

202 pages