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Articles 1 - 23 of 23
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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 4: Ballad Of Sir Aldingar, James Kinsley
Phantastes Chapter 4: Ballad Of Sir Aldingar, James Kinsley
German Romantic and Other Influences
A child ballad of various origins. Aldingar attempts to seduce the Queen, who spurns him and sets off Aldingar to falsely accuse the Queen of sleeping with a leper. The king believes Aldingar, and the Queen asks that a knight fight for her honor. Unable to find a knight, she relies on a four-year-old boy, who defeats Aldingar. On his deathbed he admits his accusation was false. The history of this ballad can be found in Paul Christopherson’s The Ballad of Sir Aldingar, its Origins and Analogues, Oxford UP, 1952
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 8: Faust, Goethe
Phantastes Chapter 8: Faust, Goethe
German Romantic and Other Influences
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), was a German writer associated with the Sturm and Drang (Storm and Stress) literary movement. Faust 1 (1806) has Mephistopheles, a minion for the devil, seduce Faust into selling his soul to the devil. Faust, in turn, seduces a young woman, ultimately destroying her. In Faust 2 (1831), Faust goes on a series of adventures, meets some fairies, and finally atones for some of his sins and is able to enter Heaven.
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.
Phantastes Chapter 22: Titan: A Romance, Jean Paul
Phantastes Chapter 22: Titan: A Romance, Jean Paul
German Romantic and Other Influences
Jean Paul (Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, 1763-1825) was a German writer. Titan (1800-1803) is a four-volume novel in the Bildungsroman (novel of education) tradition. Schoppe is the friend of Albano (the main character), who searches for balance in his life. Schoppe, however, is a cynic and pessimist and dies after he thinks he see his doppelgänger, but who is, in fact, his look-alike friend. Schoppe’s tragic ending reinforces the death of the brothers in Phantastes.
Phantastes Chapter 16: Life And The Ideal, Friedrich Von Schiller
Phantastes Chapter 16: Life And The Ideal, Friedrich Von Schiller
German Romantic and Other Influences
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) was a German writer, primarily known as a dramatist, poet, and literary critic. Das Ideal und das Leben (Life and the Ideal, 1795) is a philosophical poem. The Oxford Reference reports that the poem was “first published in 1795 in No. 9 of Die Horen, with the title ‘Das Reich der Schatten’. Schiller changed this in 1800 to ‘Das Reich der Formen’, and adopted the present title in 1804.” Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), writer and politician, translated the poem in 1844 as Ideal and Actual Life. Bulwer-Lytton began his novel Paul Clifford …
Phantastes Chapter 18: Hesperus, Jean Paul
Phantastes Chapter 18: Hesperus, Jean Paul
German Romantic and Other Influences
Jean Paul—Johann Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825)—was a German writer in the Romantic tradition, also known for his humorous writing. Hesperus (1795) includes two major ideas that MacDonald explores throughout Phantastes: the notion of dreams, and the importance of mirrors.
Phantastes Chapter 13: I Prithee Send Me Back My Heart, John Suckling
Phantastes Chapter 13: I Prithee Send Me Back My Heart, John Suckling
German Romantic and Other Influences
Lines 13-18 from “I prithee send me back my heart” by the poet Sir John Suckling. Suckling (1609-1641) is associated with the Cavalier Poets, poets who supported King Charles I. Suckling is the inventor of the card game cribbage.
Phantastes Chapter 19: The Innocent Iii, Abraham Cowley
Phantastes Chapter 19: The Innocent Iii, Abraham Cowley
German Romantic and Other Influences
Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) was an English poet whose work echoes the metaphysical wit of John Donne. The lines quoted are lines 5-8 of “The Innocent III” (1647).
Phantastes Chapter 14: Winter's Tale, William Shakespeare
Phantastes Chapter 14: Winter's Tale, William Shakespeare
German Romantic and Other Influences
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), The Winter’s Tale, published in 1623 in the First Folio.
Phantastes Chapter 21: The Book Of Judges, Unknown
Phantastes Chapter 21: The Book Of Judges, Unknown
German Romantic and Other Influences
The Book of Judges is the seventh book of the Hebrew and the Christian Bible (Old Testament). The line quoted is from Chapter 12:3. Judges tells the stories of the heroes (judges) who restore the Israelites after they have fallen. The pattern of fall and rise is the pattern of Anodos’s experiences in Phantastes.
Phantastes Chapter 20: The Faithful Shepherdess, John Fletcher
Phantastes Chapter 20: The Faithful Shepherdess, John Fletcher
German Romantic and Other Influences
John Fletcher (1579-1625) was a contemporary of William Shakespeare and followed him as main playwright for the King’s Men. The Faithful Shepherdess (produced in 1608, probably published in 1609) is also important for Fletcher’s definition of tragicomedy, which highlights the importance of near-death to the genre.
Phantastes Chapter 22: The Revenger's Tragedy, Cyril Tourneur
Phantastes Chapter 22: The Revenger's Tragedy, Cyril Tourneur
German Romantic and Other Influences
Cyril Tourneur (1575-1626) was an English dramatist, a contemporary of Shakespeare; Tourneur was also a soldier and politician. The Revenger’s Tragedy (1607), as its name implies, is a revenge tragedy, and comments on the battle to avenge the destruction by the giants that lead to the brothers’ deaths. Literary critics now believe that the play was written by Thomas Middleton (1580-1627).
Phantastes Chapter 24: The Honest Whore, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton
Phantastes Chapter 24: The Honest Whore, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton
German Romantic and Other Influences
Thomas Dekker (1572-1632) was a dramatist and writer of popular pamphlets describing London life. This line comes from the play The Honest Whore, Part II (1605 or 1606). The Honest Whore, Part I, a collaboration between Dekker and Thomas Middleton, was performed in 1604.
Phantastes Chapter 13: The Water Is Wide, Unknown
Phantastes Chapter 13: The Water Is Wide, Unknown
German Romantic and Other Influences
Lines are from an old Scottish ballad, “The Water is Wide,” dating from the seventeenth century. We note, for interest’s sake, that Bob Dylan and Joan Baez sing a version of this song in the 1975 film Renaldo and Clara.
Phantastes Chapter 23: Astrophel: An Elegy, Or Friend’S Passion, For His Astrophill, Matthew Roydon
Phantastes Chapter 23: Astrophel: An Elegy, Or Friend’S Passion, For His Astrophill, Matthew Roydon
German Romantic and Other Influences
Matthew Roydon (1580-1622), Elizabethan poet and friend of Sidney’s. In 1593, Roydon published his elegy for Sidney: “Astrophel: An Elegy, or Friend’s Passion, for His Astrophill.” MacDonald quotes lines 103-106. “The lineaments of Gospell bookes,” suggests that Sidney’s face exhibited a spirituality of a kind found in the four gospels of the New Testament
Phantastes Chapter 23: The Countess Of Pembroke’S Arcadia, Philip Sidney
Phantastes Chapter 23: The Countess Of Pembroke’S Arcadia, Philip Sidney
German Romantic and Other Influences
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1583) was an Elizabethan courtier, soldier, and poet. The quotation derives from The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (1590), and sets out Sidney’s definition of a gentleman. Late in his writing career, MacDonald published a collection of excerpts from Sidney: A Cabinet of Gems, Cut and Polished by Sir Philip Sidney (1892). MacDonald lectured on Sidney as early as 1854.
Phantastes Chapter 20: The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser
Phantastes Chapter 20: The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser
German Romantic and Other Influences
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), most famous for The Faerie Queene (1590; 1596), is a key influence on MacDonald generally and on Phantastes in particular. John Docherty writes that “MacDonald bases his upon the figure Phantastes living the forebrain of the ‘House of Alma' (the human body) in book 2 of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene” (“Sources of Phantastes,” North Wind: A Journal of George MacDonald Studies, vol. 25, 2005, pages 16-28).
Phantastes Chapter 15: Campaspe, John Lyly
Phantastes Chapter 15: Campaspe, John Lyly
German Romantic and Other Influences
Campaspe, an Elizabethan play by John Lyly (1584). The lines quoted are from Act 3, Scene 4, and they indicate the notion of a Platonic beauty, an ideal beauty that the artist can never capture perfectly