Phantasmagoria Spirit Visions, Metaphors, and Media into the Twenty-first Century

by Warner, Marina

• ISBN13: 9780199239238
• ISBN10: 0199239231
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-05-30
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In what is thought to be a secular and rational age, why are so many of us still preoccupied with ideas of 'spirit', 'soul', and the supernatural? Why have angels, ghosts, phantasms, fairies, and zombies continued to exercise power over the imagination ever since the Enlightenment? Marina Warner explores the products of fantasy, bringing vital new insights to our ideas about the supernatural and its relationship with self and society, and probing the metaphors and media that have been the stock in trade of poets, scientists, magicians, and visionaries, including wax and cloud, light and shadow, smoke and mirrors, ether, ectoplasm, and celluloid. Illustrated with eight pages of colour and over forty black-and-white images, Phantasmagoria is packed with apparitions, illusions, and other strange and wondrous experiences. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Marina Warner is Professor of Literature at the University of Essex, an Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and a Visiting Professor at St. Andrew's University, Scotland. An acclaimed novelist and mythographer, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2005.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. xiii
Abbreviations	p. xvii
Prologue	p. 1
Introduction: The Logic of the Imaginary	p. 9
Wax	p. 21
Living Likenesses; Death Masks	p. 23
Anatomies and Heroes: Madame Tussaud's	p. 31
On the Threshold: Sleeping Beauties	p. 47
Air	p. 59
The Breath of Life	p. 61
Winged Spirits and Sweet Airs	p. 71
Clouds	p. 81
Clouds of Glory	p. 83
Fata Morgana; or, Castles in the Air	p. 95
'Very Like a Whale'	p. 105
Light	p. 119
The Eye of the Imagination	p. 121
Fancy's Images; Insubstantial Pageants	p. 131
Shadow	p. 145
Darkness Visible: The Phantasmagoria	p. 147
The Origin of Painting; or, The Corinthian Maid	p. 159
Mirror	p. 167
The Danger in the Mirror	p. 169
Double Vision	p. 179
The Camera Steals the Soul	p. 189
Ghost	p. 203
'Stay This Moment': Julia Margaret Cameron and Charles Dodgson	p. 205
Spectral Rappers, Psychic Photographers	p. 221
Phantoms to the Test: The Society for Psychical Research	p. 237
Ether	p. 251
Soul Vibrations; or, The Fluidic Invisible	p. 253
Time Travel and Other Selves	p. 265
Exotic Visitors, Multiple Lives	p. 277
Ectoplasm	p. 285
Touching the Unknown	p. 287
Materializing Mediums	p. 299
The Rorschach Test; or, Dirty Pictures	p. 309
Film	p. 317
Nice Life, an Extra's	p. 319
Disembodied Eyes: The Culture of Apocalypse	p. 335
Our Zombies, Our Selves	p. 357
Conclusion	p. 371
Notes	p. 382
Bibliography	p. 423
Index	p. 453
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