Bloomsbury Home
This product is usually dispatched within 1 week
- Delivery and returns info
-
Free US delivery on orders $35 or over
You must sign in to add this item to your wishlist. Please sign in or create an account
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
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 | Nov 11 2022 |
---|---|
Format | Hardback |
Edition | 1st |
Extent | 228 |
ISBN | 9781666913750 |
Imprint | Lexington Books |
Illustrations | 19 b/w illustrations;1 table |
Dimensions | 9 x 6 inches |
Series | Studies in Folklore and Ethnology: Traditions, Practices, and Identities |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
-
Spring man is a hero, a villain, a superhero, a savior, a threat, a warning to children, a warning to occupying forces, a specter, a monster, a protector, a global phenomenon, an embodiment of a distinctly Czech spirit of resistance, a figure of folklore, a figure from science fiction, an Icarus, a Robin Hood, a Golem, a Batman; pastoral, industrial, urban, and post-modern. Through a deep reading of a vast array of primary sources and with a thorough yet highly accessible presentation of legend scholarship and theory, Petr Janecek has provided this nimble study of the elusive Spring Man, in what will be a model for future work.
Ian Brodie, Cape Breton University