Description:
Imagining the Pagan Past explores the pagan stories of Britain's past. From the Middle Ages to the present, Marion Gibson explores the ways in which British pagan gods and goddesses have been represented in poetry, novels, plays, chronicles, scientific and scholarly writing. From Geoffrey of Monmouth to Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare to John Dryden and H.G. Wells to Naomi Mitchison it explores Romano-British, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon deities and fictions. The result is a comprehensive picture of the ways in which writers have peopled the British pagan pantheons throughout history. Imagining the Pagan Past will be essential reading for all those interested in the history of paganism.
Review Quotes:
"This is a work of importance to historians, literary critics and experts in cultural studies alike. It covers a span of one and a half millennia of British writing with equal sureness of touch and equal freshness of style, throwing out new insights in every chapter and delivering major overall perspectives on the British relationship with paganism." - Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol, UK