ALPH: Arbeiten zur Literarischen Phantastik / ALPH: Approaches to Literary Phantasy – serie

As we approach the seventieth anniversary of the first appearance of Mary Poppins, interest in P. L. Travers most famous creation is still strong and the time is right for a reassessment of a work that is rich in meaning for child and adult readers alike. This book attempts to analyse some of the reasons behind the longevity and the ongoing appeal of the Mary Poppins material, with particular reference to intertextuality and the presence of what Freud described as the uncanny. By comparing and contrasting the Mary Poppins material with previous texts, it can be seen that Travers has been drawing, consciously and subconsciously, on the great myths and archetypes of the collective human storytelling experience. The idea therefore emerges that the Mary Poppins stories touch on some fundamental aspect of the psyche an aspect where the symbiosis of security and fear, the familiar and the unknown, are made manifest to the reader, whether as children finding their way into adulthood or as adults recalling their beginnings.

Ancient and modern Egypt feature in numerous fantastic stories by Victorian and Edwardian writers. This book explores how works of popular Egyptianising fantastic literature can be read as critical texts which comment on the Oriental mind-set of Europe, and especially Britain. The analysis of the genre and the discussion of possible reasons for the frequent use of Egyptianising elements show that Egypt was simultaneously a real and an imagined place – a perfect ingredient to create gothic stories and magical events, and, at the same time, of specific interest to Great Britain for cultural and political reasons.

In the English-speaking world, the medieval concept of Cokaygne as a paradisiac landscape made of food is merely preserved as a part of American folklore, the «Big Rock Candy Mountain». This motif of food in abundance is recurrent in children’s literature, which is discussed here first of all from a psychoanalytic angle, arguing that the infant’s first contact with the world is established through food intake. In addition, a scarce diet as part of child-rearing in the 19th century and the rationing system during World War II triggered the fantasy in children and adults alike. Accordingly, the medieval land of plenty found a new place in the imagination of the Victorian and post-war child. Apart from the predominant theme of the consuming child, this book also links the notion of cannibalism to the imagined cornucopia of food in children’s literature, which is a frequent motif in many children’s books up to the 21st century.