Enchanted Islands

Enchanted Islands PDF Author: Mary D. Sheriff
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022648324X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
In Enchanted Islands, renowned art historian Mary D. Sheriff explores the legendary, fictional, and real islands that filled the French imagination during the ancien regime as they appeared in royal ballets and festivals, epic literature, paintings, engravings, book illustrations, and other objects. Some of the islands were mythical and found in the most popular literary texts of the day—islands featured prominently, for instance, in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso,Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, and Fénelon’s, Telemachus. Other islands—real ones, such as Tahiti and St. Domingue—the French learned about from the writings of travelers and colonists. All of them were imagined to be the home of enchantresses who used magic to conquer heroes by promising sensual and sexual pleasure. As Sheriff shows, the theme of the enchanted island was put to many uses. Kings deployed enchanted-island mythology to strengthen monarchical authority, as Louis XIV did in his famous Versailles festival Les Plaisirs de l’île enchantée. Writers such as Fénelon used it to tell morality tales that taught virtue, duty, and the need for male strength to triumph over female weakness and seduction. Yet at the same time, artists like Boucher painted enchanted islands to portray art’s purpose as the giving of pleasure. In all these ways and more, Sheriff demonstrates for the first time the centrality of enchanted islands to ancient regime culture in a book that will enchant all readers interested in the art, literature, and history of the time.

Royal Enchantment

Royal Enchantment PDF Author: Sharon Ashwood
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 1488031207
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
She married the king. She wanted the man. Guinevere's marriage to Arthur was a political partnership, never a romance. Merlin knows that the king's court, newly restored at a medieval theme park, will only be complete if Arthur has his lady. Little did anyone suspect that once Guinevere gets a taste of twenty-first-century freedoms that this ancient queen would lose interest in belonging to any man—even a royal one. It takes a dragon, and some passionate nights spent in each other's arms, to lure her back to her husband's side. Arthur is willing to accept Gwen's help in protecting the new Camelot from a fae menace, but the bigger challenge will be wooing back Guinevere for a second chance at love…

Enchanted Islands

Enchanted Islands PDF Author: Mary D. Sheriff
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022648324X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Enchanted Islands, renowned art historian Mary D. Sheriff explores the legendary, fictional, and real islands that filled the French imagination during the ancien regime as they appeared in royal ballets and festivals, epic literature, paintings, engravings, book illustrations, and other objects. Some of the islands were mythical and found in the most popular literary texts of the day—islands featured prominently, for instance, in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso,Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, and Fénelon’s, Telemachus. Other islands—real ones, such as Tahiti and St. Domingue—the French learned about from the writings of travelers and colonists. All of them were imagined to be the home of enchantresses who used magic to conquer heroes by promising sensual and sexual pleasure. As Sheriff shows, the theme of the enchanted island was put to many uses. Kings deployed enchanted-island mythology to strengthen monarchical authority, as Louis XIV did in his famous Versailles festival Les Plaisirs de l’île enchantée. Writers such as Fénelon used it to tell morality tales that taught virtue, duty, and the need for male strength to triumph over female weakness and seduction. Yet at the same time, artists like Boucher painted enchanted islands to portray art’s purpose as the giving of pleasure. In all these ways and more, Sheriff demonstrates for the first time the centrality of enchanted islands to ancient regime culture in a book that will enchant all readers interested in the art, literature, and history of the time.

Royal Enchantment (Mills & Boon Nocturne)

Royal Enchantment (Mills & Boon Nocturne) PDF Author: Sharon Ashwood
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 1474063470
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
She married the king. She wanted the man.

Culture and Enchantment

Culture and Enchantment PDF Author: Mark A. Schneider
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226739274
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Max Weber viewed modern life as disenchanted, an arena from which scientific inquiry had banished magic. In contrast, Mark Schneider argues intriguingly that enchantment—the sense that we are confronted by inexplicable phenomena—persists in the world today, although it has shifted from the natural to the cultural arena. Culture and Enchantment shows that students of culture today operate in social and intellectual circumstances similar to those of seventeenth-century natural philosophers. Just as Newton was drawn to alchemy, scholars today are fascinated by ghostly and mercurial agents thought to account for the meanings of cultural entities. For interpretive disciplines, Schneider suggests, meaning often behaves behaves as mysteriously as the apparitions pursued by centuries ago by natural philosophers. He demonstrates this using two case studies from anthropology: Clifford Geertz's description of Balinese cockfights and Yoruba statuary, and Claude Levi-Strauss's analyses of myths. These provide a basis for actively engaging disputes over the meaning and interpretation of culture. Culture and Enchantment will appeal to an interdisciplinary audience in anthropology, sociology, history, history and sociology of science, culture studies, and literary theory. Schneider's provocative arguments will make this book a fulcrum in the continuing debate over the nature and prospects of cultural inquiry.

Enchantments

Enchantments PDF Author: Kathryn Harrison
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812973771
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK “Part love story, part history, this novel is a tour de force [told] in language that soars and sears.”—More St. Petersburg, 1917. After Rasputin’s body is pulled from the icy waters of the Neva River, his eighteen-year-old daughter, Masha, is sent to live at the imperial palace with Tsar Nikolay and his family. Desperately hoping that Masha has inherited Rasputin’s healing powers, Tsarina Alexandra asks her to tend to her son, the headstrong prince Alyosha, who suffers from hemophilia. Soon after Masha arrives at the palace, the tsar is forced to abdicate, and the Bolsheviks place the royal family under house arrest. As Russia descends into civil war, Masha and Alyosha find solace in each other’s company. To escape the confinement of the palace, and to distract the prince from the pain she cannot heal, Masha tells him stories—some embellished and others entirely imagined—about Nikolay and Alexandra’s courtship, Rasputin’s exploits, and their wild and wonderful country, now on the brink of an irrevocable transformation. In the worlds of their imagination, the weak become strong, legend becomes fact, and a future that will never come to pass feels close at hand. Praise for Enchantments “A sumptuous, atmospheric account of the last days of the Romanovs from the perspective of Rasputin’s daughter, [told] with the sensuous, transporting prose that is Kathryn Harrison’s trademark.”—Jennifer Egan “[A] splendid and surprising book . . . Harrison has given us something enduring.”—The New York Times Book Review “[Harrison delivers] this oft-told moment with shocking freshness. . . . Masha re-invents our ideas of Rasputin, and the world of Nicholas and Alexandra is imbued with a glow whose fierceness is governed by the imminence of its loss.”—Los Angeles Times “A mesmerizing novel.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “Bewitching . . . Harrison sets historic facts like jewels in this intricately fashioned work of exalted empathy and imagination, a literary Fabergé egg. . . . [A] dazzling return to historical fiction.”—Booklist (starred review) Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more.

A Royal's Pursuit

A Royal's Pursuit PDF Author: Makayla Roberts
Publisher: Totally Entwined Group (USA+CAD)
ISBN: 1913186695
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Family comes first. Desire second. At least, that's how it's supposed to be... Lucian has better things to do than hunt down a creature who may or may not exist—a siren whose singing voice can heal anything. But with his brother's life depending on his success, he sets out, only to be distracted by a woman whose beauty is enough to stir the desire he'd long ago thought was gone. Unfortunately, courting her is as dangerous as the enemy hunting them down, for Siovon would rip his heart out before allowing him to find her sister. Siovon doesn't trust Lucian, no matter how much his every touch ignites her passion. After being held captive for the last decade, she will do anything it takes to find and protect her sister—including lying to strike a deal with the handsome vampire. If giving up her life means Calysta would be safe, then so be it. However, the more time she spends with Lucian, the harder it becomes to ignore the powerful truemate call binding them together. The line between true love and duty to family becomes blurred in this battle of the hearts, but Siovon and Lucian will learn the hard way that some sacrifice might be worth it in the end. That is, if it doesn't tear them apart first.

An Enchantment of Ravens

An Enchantment of Ravens PDF Author: Margaret Rogerson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1481497588
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
A skilled painter must stand up to the ancient power of the faerie courts--even as she falls in love with a faerie prince--in this gorgeous debut novel. 6 x 9.

Enchantment's Trap

Enchantment's Trap PDF Author: Sela Croft
Publisher: Camden Lee Press, LLC
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
The Vampire Prince risks it all in the war with the Fae. Callie discovers untold powers, connects with her past, and transforms in a way she never expected. The rescue of her sister teeters in the balance. A centuries-old sorceress, vampire magic, and a horrifying blood exchange thrust her into a new state and unexpected consequences. Logan taps into his supernatural abilities to save Callie and her sister. Yet he meets with forces more powerful than anticipated. A life-changing event releases his strength as never before. The prince must save the woman he loves, and the very world he lives in.

Royal Enchantment

Royal Enchantment PDF Author: Sharon Ashwood
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 9780373139910
Category : Amusement parks
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
She married the king. She wanted the man. Guinevere's marriage to Arthur was a political partnership, never a romance. Merlin knows that the king's court, newly restored at a medieval theme park, will only be complete if Arthur has his lady. Little did anyone suspect that once Guinevere gets a taste of twenty-first-century freedoms that this ancient queen would lose interest in belonging to any maneven a royal one.

Empire of Enchantment

Empire of Enchantment PDF Author: John Zubrzycki
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190934883
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
India's association with magicians goes back thousands of years. Conjurors and illusionists dazzled the courts of Hindu maharajas and Mughal emperors. As British dominion spread over the subcontinent, such wonder-workers became synonymous with India. Western magicians appropriated Indian attire, tricks and stage names; switching their turbans for top hats, Indian jugglers fought back and earned their grudging respect. This book tells the extraordinary story of how Indian magic descended from the realm of the gods to become part of daily ritual and popular entertainment across the globe. Recounting tales of levitating Brahmins, resurrections, prophesying monkeys and "the most famous trick never performed," Empire of Enchantment vividly charts Indian magic's epic journey from street to the stage. This heavily illustrated book tells the extraordinary, untold story of how Indian magic descended from the realm of the gods to become part of daily ritual and popular entertainment across the globe. Drawing on ancient religious texts, early travelers' accounts, colonial records, modern visual sources, and magicians' own testimony, Empire of Enchantment is a vibrant narrative of India's magical traditions, from Vedic times to the present day.