Imaginary Animals: The Monstrous, the Wondrous and the Human - Hardcover

Sax, Boria

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1780231733 ISBN 13: 9781780231730

Publisher: Reaktion Books, 2013

Synopsis

Medieval authors placed fantastic creatures in the borders of manuscripts, since they mark the boundaries of our understanding. Tales throughout the world generally place fabulous beasts in marginal locations - deserts, deep woods, remote islands, glaciers, ocean depths, mountain peaks, caves, swamps, heavenly bodies and alternate universes. According to apocalyptic visions of the Bible, they will also proliferate as we approach the end of time.,

Because they challenge our conceptual powers, fantastic creatures also seem to exist at the limits of language. Legends tell us that imaginary animals belong to a primordial time, before we had encompassed the world in names, categories and elaborate conceptual frameworks. This richly illustrated book shows how, despite their liminal role, griffins, dog-men, mermaids, dragons, unicorns, yetis and many other imaginary creatures are socially constructed through the same complex play of sensuality and imagination as 'real' ones.,

It traces the history of imaginary animals from Palaeolithic art to the Harry Potter stories and robotic pets. These figures help us psychologically by giving form to our amorphous fears as 'monsters', as well as embodying our hopes as 'wonders'. Nevertheless, their greatest service may be to continually challenge our imaginations, directing us beyond the limitations of our conventional beliefs and expectations.

About this title

Review:

'I found Imaginary Animals to be an intriguing and thought-provoking discovery. Scholarly and well-researched, without being either ponderous or condescending, it is written with real wit, and with a contagious delight in its subject rare in such a study. I would recommend it enthusiastically to anyone interested in the astonishing range of folkloric, religious, cultural, philosophic and political symbolism with which human beings have regarded and ceaselessly recreated real animals in our time together on this planet.'
Peter S. Beagle, Author of The Last Unicorn

About the Author:

Boria Sax teaches at Sing Sing Prison in upstate New York, and online for the University of Illinois at Springfield. His books include Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust (2000), Crow (Reaktion, 2003) and City of Ravens: The Extraordinary History of London, its Tower and its Famous Ravens (2012).

About this edition

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1780231733
• ISBN 13: 9781780231730
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272