Enigmatic Bliss

What power has assured the continual fascination of writers with paradise? This book suggests that the answer lies in the complex, dynamic, and enigmatic roles offered by adopting paradise as a literary motif. Once it has shifted from myth to a flexible component of literary texts, it builds diverse significations and contexts into a recognizable literary construct and then plays these against each other in a fluid series of ambiguities and enigmas. This process encourages ever new contextualizations of paradise in response to changing cultural, technological, and social conditions.

Autorentext

The Author: A specialist in literary themes and motifs, Ingrid G. Daemmrich has published numerous studies in thematics and comparative literature. The Handbook of Themes and Motifs in Western Literature, co-authored with Horst S. Daemmrich, is used as a reference guide by students of literature throughout the world. Spirals and Circles: A Key to Thematic Patterns in Classicism and Realism (Peter Lang, 1994), also co-authored with Horst S. Daemmrich, presents a comprehensive thematic approach to two important literary movements.