Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 7 of 7
Full-Text Articles in Digital Humanities
Phantastes Chapter 5: Romance Of Sir Launfal, Thomas Chestre
Phantastes Chapter 5: Romance Of Sir Launfal, Thomas Chestre
German Romantic and Other Influences
A medieval poem of 1045 lines telling of a knight who loses status and wealth and who meets a beautiful woman who gives him love and wealth as long as he keeps her existence a secret. The motif of the lover’s prohibition appears in several medieval texts, and MacDonald makes use of this motif in this chapter.
Phantastes Chapter 6: The Demon Lady, William Motherwell
Phantastes Chapter 6: The Demon Lady, William Motherwell
German Romantic and Other Influences
From the poem “The Demon Lady” (1830), first published in The Edinburgh Literary Journal. William Motherwell (1797-1835) was a Scottish journalist and poet, as well as a collector of local Scottish ballads.
Phantastes Chapter 5: Pygmalion, Thomas Lovell Beddoes
Phantastes Chapter 5: Pygmalion, Thomas Lovell Beddoes
German Romantic and Other Influences
Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-1849) was a Romantic poet intensely focused on death. His poem “Pygmalion” (1825) recounts the myth of the Cypriot sculptor who fell in love with the statue he carved. In this chapter, MacDonald echoes this myth.
Phantastes Chapter 12: A Threefold Cord, Unknown
Phantastes Chapter 12: A Threefold Cord, Unknown
German Romantic and Other Influences
This poem appears in MacDonald’s A Threefold Cord (1883), where MacDonald is credited as contributor and editor. In this volume, individual authors are not credited. While some have thought that this passage is by MacDonald himself, Nick Page persuasively argues that the poem should be attributed to MacDonald’s friend Greville Ewing Matheson. See Page, Phantastes: Special Annotated Edition (Paternoster, 2008)
Phantastes Chapter 1: Alastor; Or, The Spirit Of Solitude, Percy Bysshe Shelley
Phantastes Chapter 1: Alastor; Or, The Spirit Of Solitude, Percy Bysshe Shelley
German Romantic and Other Influences
A quest poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) published in 1816. The full title is “Alastor: or, the Spirit of Solitude.” MacDonald quotes lines 484-488 in which the Poet encounters his soulmate. Shelley’s poem is a major influence on Phantastes, and Shelley’s Preface to “Alastor” offers a nice gloss on MacDonald’s fantasy. “The poem entitled ‘Alastor’ may be considered as allegorical of one of the most interesting situations of the human mind. It represents a youth of uncorrupted feelings and adventurous genius led forth by an imagination inflamed and purified through familiarity with all that is excellent and majestic, …
Phantastes Chapter 9: Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Phantastes Chapter 9: Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
German Romantic and Other Influences
From Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Dejection: An Ode" (lines 47-49 and 53-58). Coleridge published the poem in 1802.
Phantastes Chapter 2: Heinrich Von Ofterdingen, Georg Philipp Friedrich
Phantastes Chapter 2: Heinrich Von Ofterdingen, Georg Philipp Friedrich
German Romantic and Other Influences
Novalis is Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (1772-1801). A German writer who helped define German Romanticism, he was a key influence on MacDonald. Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1802) is a fantastical romance that concerns a young poet in search of love, who has dream visions. A central symbol in the work is a blue flower, which has become an icon for German Romanticism.