Spring Man

A Belief Legend between Folklore and Popular Culture

Spring Man cover

Spring Man

A Belief Legend between Folklore and Popular Culture

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Description

Spring Man: A Belief Legend between Folklore and Popular Culture deconstructs the nationalistic myth of Spring Man that was created after the Second World War in visual culture and literature and presents his original form as an ambiguous, ghostly denizen of oral culture. Petr Janecek analyzes the archetypal character, social context, and cultural significance of this fascinating phenomenon with the help of dozens of accounts provided by period eyewitnesses, oral narratives, and other sources. At the same time, the author illustrates the international origin of the tales in the originally British migratory legend of Spring-heeled Jack that reaches back to the second-third of the nineteenth century, and Janecek also draws parallels between the Czech myth of Spring Man and similar urban phantom narratives popular in the 1910s Russia, 1940s United States and Slovakia, and 1950s Germany, as well as other parts of the world.

Table of Contents

Introduction – Urban Phantom between Comparative Folkloristics and Ethnology
Chapter 1. The Birth of a Legend – Spring Man in Czech Folklore and Oral History
Chapter 2. Phantoms of the Industrial Age – The Cultural Evolution of Spring Man
Chapter 3. The Social and Cultural Functions of Urban Demonology
Chapter 4. A Superhero for Every Regime – Spring Man in Visual Culture and Literature

Product details

Published 31 Oct 2022
Format Ebook (PDF)
Edition 1st
Extent 1
ISBN 9798765183717
Imprint Lexington Books
Illustrations 19 b/w illustrations;1 table
Series Studies in Folklore and Ethnology: Traditions, Practices, and Identities
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

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