Nathaniel Hawthorne (+Biography and Bibliography) (Glossy Cover Finish): The author has long been of opinion that many of the classical myths were capable of being rendered into very capital reading for children. In the little volume here offered to the public, he has worked up half a dozen of them, with this end in view. A great freedom of treatment was necessary to his plan; but it will be observed by every one who attempts to render these legends malleable in his intellectual furnace, that they are marvellously independent of all temporary modes and circumstances. They remain essentially the same, after changes that would affect the identity of almost anything else.

William R. Brashear deals with tragedy, not as a dramatic literary genre, but as a basic way of experiencing the universe and of reacting to it. The writer of tragedy forces readers to confront much more than a tragic flaw in a single character; he forces them to confront the gorgon's head itself, the ultimate chaos of the universe. For him, Aristotle's intellectualization of tragedy distorted it for centuries because the tragic sense of life is experiential and intuitive rather than logical and syllogistic. In the later works of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Spangler, Brashear finds the beginnings of the understanding of tragedy that developed in nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature. In careful considerations of such writers as Shakespeare, Tennyson, Conrad, Housman, Shaw, O'Neill, and Arthur Miller, Brashear refines his views of tragedy and tests their validity. The chapter on Tennyson supersedes and goes well beyond The Living Will, his earlier study of the poet. Brashear's discussions of individual writers reinforce each other and point to several important conclusions about the tragic vision and tragic art. Most significant among his conclusions is that tragedy is often taken to be more benign and positive than it really is and that if the tragic experience is essentially healthy and rewarding, it is so because it involves a confrontation that broadens, strengthens, and stabilizes and not because it suggests any ultimate solution to the human condition.

Sir James G. Frazer (1854-1941) is famous as the author of The Golden Bough, but his work ranged widely across classics, cultural history, folklore and literary criticism as well as anthropology. A Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, for 62 years, Sir James G. Frazer devoted his life to research. With a preface by Anatole France, this book was first published in 1927.

Medusa, the Gorgon, who turns those who gaze upon her to stone, is one of the most popular and enduring figures of Greek mythology. Long after many other figures from Greek myth have been forgotten, she continues to live in popular culture. In this fascinating study of the legend of Medusa, Stephen R. Wilk begins by refamiliarizing readers with the story through ancient authors and classical artwork, then looks at the interpretations that have been given of the meaning of the myth through the years. A new and original interpretation of the myth is offered, based upon astronomical phenomena. The use of the gorgoneion, the Face of the Gorgon, on shields and on roofing tiles is examined in light of parallels from around the world, and a unique interpretation of the reality behind the gorgoneion is suggested. Finally, the history of the Gorgon since tlassical times is explored, culminating in the modern use of Medusa as a symbol of Female Rage and Female Creativity.

Over the last three decades, the visual artist William Kentridge has garnered international acclaim for his work across media including drawing, film, sculpture, printmaking, and theater. Rendered in stark contrasts of black and white, his images reflect his native South Africa and, like endlessly suggestive shadows, point to something more elemental as well. Based on the 2012 Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, Six Drawing Lessons is the most comprehensive collection available of Kentridge’s thoughts on art, art-making, and the studio. Art, Kentridge says, is its own form of knowledge. It does not simply supplement the real world, and it cannot be purely understood in the rational terms of traditional academic disciplines. The studio is the crucial location for the creation of meaning: the place where linear thinking is abandoned and the material processes of the eye, the hand, the charcoal and paper become themselves the guides of creativity. Drawing has the potential to educate us about the most complex issues of our time. This is the real meaning of “drawing lessons.” Incorporating elements of graphic design and ranging freely from discussions of Plato’s cave to the Enlightenment’s role in colonial oppression to the depiction of animals in art, Six Drawing Lessons is an illustration in print of its own thesis of how art creates knowledge. Foregrounding the very processes by which we see, Kentridge makes us more aware of the mechanisms—and deceptions—through which we construct meaning in the world.

Perseus wants to serve the King of Seriphos, but the King is jealous and sends him on an impossible errand. He is to bring back the head of Medusa.- Filled with monsters, gods, & heroes.