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Libra Esoterica

Imaginary animals

the monstrous, the wondrous and the human

by Boria Sax

  • First published:
  • 21st century
  • Language: English

Description

Description from Harvard LibraryCloud (opens in a new tab)

Medieval authors placed fantastic creatures in the borders of manuscripts, since they mark the boundaries of our understanding. Tales throughout the world generally place fabulous beasts in marginal locations. According to apocalyptic visions of the Bible, they will also proliferate as we approach the end of time. Because they challenge our conceptual powers, fantastic creatures also seem to exist at the limits of language. Legends tell us that imaginary animals belong to a primordial time, before we had encompassed the world in names, categories and elaborate conceptual frameworks. This richly illustrated book shows how, despite their liminal role, dog-men, mermaids, and many other imaginary creatures are socially constructed through the same complex play of sensuality and imagination as "real" ones. It traces the history of imaginary animals from Palaeolithic art to the Harry Potter stories. These figures help us psychologically by giving form to our amorphous fears as "monsters", as well as embodying our hopes as "wonders.

Provenance

Why this book is in the catalog

Included because retained bibliographic metadata links this work to Cryptozoology and Forteana.

  • Cryptozoology and Forteana

    Controlled discovery queries from harvard and openlibrary matched “cryptozoology” and “Cryptozoology”. Retained metadata contains “Cryptozoology” in the subject metadata.

    • “cryptozoology”· via Harvard LibraryCloud
    • “Cryptozoology”· via Open Library
    • “Cryptozoology”· in subject

Membership records how this book met the catalog’s discovery criteria — relevance to a tradition, not a judgment of the book’s claims.

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Buy or borrow

Links to ISBN 1780231733; other editions may be cheaper. WorldCat shows libraries near you that hold a copy.

Editions

Open Library reports 3 editions; 1 cataloged here.

the monstrous, the wondrous and the human

Harvard LibraryCloud bibliographic record

278 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 26 cm

2013Reaktion BooksEnglish
  • 9781780231730
  • 1780231733
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Subjects

8 subject headings

Identifiers & provenance

How this record was assembled, and the authority identifiers it carries.

Cataloging notes

  • Open Library reports 3 editions; this snapshot catalogs one representative edition and preserves work-level ISBN, date, and publisher aggregates.
Catalog id
openlibrary-work:OL19856907W
Edition coverage
Multi source partial
Retrieved