The Penguin book of the undead Fifteen hundred years of supernatural encounters

Spanning the years between the writing of Homer's Odyssey (ca. 700 B.C.E.) and Shakespeare's Hamlet (ca. 1599 C.E.), the contents of this exceptionally well-curated compilation show that the wide variety of accounts of the undead have been rampant in literature long before the Gothic era. Pliny the Younger, in a letter from the first century C.E., reports the exorcism of a chain-rattling ghost by interring the deceased's unburied remains. William of Newburgh, writing in the 13th century C.E., relates tales of rampaging revenants who can only be disposed of through the decapitation and evisceration of their corpses. In the book's grimmest account, the first-century C.E. poet Lucan writes about a necromancer who reanimates a soldier's corpse to foretell the future. Bruce has chosen selections from numerous cultures, including ancient Greece, Anglo-Norman England, and medieval Scandinavia, with an emphasis on ecclesiastical writings whose frights served morally instructive purposes. His approach is scholarly, but he presents the contents with an enthusiasm that makes these mostly obscure works accessible to the casual reader. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Humanity's enduring fascination with the supernatural is explored in this collection of writings compiled by medievalist Bruce (history, Univ. of Colorado; Cluny and the Muslims of La Garde-Freinet). Set down by theologians, scholars, and playwrights, these tales of encounters between the living and the restless dead date from antiquity to the early modern period and are placed in their proper historical and cultural context by Bruce's introductions to both individual pieces and the eras in which they were penned. Although the tone is inevitably more scholarly than shocking, it succeeds well as an education in how stories of wandering spirits have reflected throughout history common human anxieties about death, the disposal of mortal remains, and the fate of the soul. The selected excerpts illustrate how these fears have changed through the ages and the ways in which otherworldly accounts have been used to address them. VERDICT Recommended for readers interested in the supernatural, its religious and cultural influences, and depiction in the medieval era.-Sara Shreve, Newton, KS © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

THE PENGUIN BOOK OF THE UNDEAD Table of Contents Ancient Apparitions I. Greek and Roman Remains - Odysseus in the House of Death - Pliny Contemplates the Existence of Ghosts - A Mistress of the Graves II. Early Christian Hauntings - Speaking with the Dead in the Hebrew Scriptures - A Ghost Upon the Waters - Dreaming of the Dead - The Discernment of the Saints   The Autopsy of Souls in Late Ancient Thought - Evodius's Inquiry: Going Forth from the Body, Who Are We? - Augustine's Rejection of Ghosts - Pope Gregory the Great: How Can the Living Help the Dead?   The Ecology of the Otherworld in Dark Age Europe - The Vision of Barontus - Dryhthelm Returns from the Dead                         Spectral Servants of the Church - Imperial Torments - Cluny and the Feast of All Souls - A Lesbian Ghost - The Haunting of the Cloister   - Warnings to the Living   Night is the Dead's Domain - Spirits of Malice - The Blackened Hearts of Stapenhill - The Evil Welshman - Rampaging Revenants   The Ghosts of War - Terror in Tonnerre - Hellequin's Horde - An Army White as Snow   Northern Horrors - The Ravenous Dead - Old Ghosts, New Laws   Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror - Recreation for an Emperor - The Ghosts of Byland Abbey   The Reformation of the Wraiths - Of Ghostes and Spirites Walking by Nyght - When Night Draws Swiftly Darkling On   Haunting the Wings - The Torments of Tantalus - Hamlet, Remember Me Excerpted from The Penguin Book of the Undead: Fifteen Hundred Years of Supernatural Encounters All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.