Primary Sources on Monsters

Asa Simon Mittman, Marcus Hensel, Asa Simon Mittman, Marcus Hensel

• Publisher: Arc Humanities Press
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781942401223
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: History of Art
• Index: Literature

This volume and its companion gather a wide range of readings and sources to enable us to see and understand what monsters show us about what it means to be human. The first volume introduces important modern theorists of the monstrous, with a brief introduction to each reading, setting the theorist and theory in context, and providing background and guiding questions. The selection of readings in Classic Readings on Monster Theory is intended to provide interpretive tools and strategies to use to grapple with the primary sources in the second volume - Primary Sources on Monsters - which brings together some of the most influential and indicative monster narratives from the West.

Taken together, these volumes allow us to witness the consistent, multi-millennium strategies the West has articulated, weaponized, and deployed to exclude, disempower, and dehumanize a range of groups and individuals within and without its porous boundaries.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• ASA SIMON MITTMAN and MARCUS HENSEL — Introduction: A Marvel of Monsters
• The Epic of Gilgamesh, trans. ANDREW GEORGE
• The Bible
• Hesiod, Theogony, trans. DEBBIE FELTON
• Homer, The Odyssey, Odysseus and his Men Encounter the Cyclops, trans. DEBBIE FELTON
• Bust of Polyphemus
• Pliny the Elder, Natural History, trans. EMILY ALBU
• Ovid, Metamorphoses, Lycaon and Cadmus, trans. BRITTA SPANN
• St. Augustine of Hippo, City of God , trans. GWENDOLYNE KNIGHT
• Táin Bó Cúailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley), trans. LARISSA TRACY
• The Wonders of the East, trans. ASA SIMON MITTMAN and SUSAN M. KIM
• Donestre, Huntress, and Boar-Tusked Women
• Beowulf, trans. ROY LIUZZA
• Modern Images of Grendel
• Marie de France, Bisclavret, trans. GLYN BURGESS
• Völsunga saga (The Saga of the Volsungs), trans. LARISSA TRACY
• The Life of Saint Christopher, trans. SUSAN M. KIM
• Illumination of Saint Christopher
• The Alliterative Morte Arthure, trans. RENÉE WARD
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. CHRISTINA M. McCARTER
• Ambroise Paré, On Monsters, trans. ANNA KŁOSOWSKA
• Renaissance Figures of Monsters
• EDMUND SPENSER — The Faerie Queene
• WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE — The Tempest
• Images of Caliban
• JOHN SPENCER — A Discourse Concerning Prodigies
• JOHN MILTON — Paradise Lost
• MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY — Frankenstein, Or The Modern Prometheus
• Frankenstein Frontispiece
• EDGAR ALLAN POE — “William Wilson”
• CHRISTINA ROSSETTI — “Goblin Market”
• Illustration of Buy From Us With A Golden Curl
• LEWIS CARROLL — “Jabberwocky”
• Illustration of Jabberwocky
• AMBROSE BIERCE — “The Damned Thing”
• BRAM STOKER — Dracula
• Frontispiece to Bram Stoker, Dracula
• ALGERNON BLACKWOOD — “Ancient Sorceries”
• H. P. LOVECRAFT — “The Call of Cthulhu”
• Sketch of Cthulhu
• C. L. MOORE — “Shambleau”
• J.R.R. TOLKIEN — The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
• THEODORE STURGEON — “It!”
• RAY BRADBURY — “Fever Dream”
• EDWARD D. HOCH — “The Faceless Thing”
• JOHN GARDNER — Grendel
• JOYCE CAROL OATES — “Secret Observations on the Goat-Girl”
• MARGARET ATWOOD — Oryx and Crake
• Slender Man
• The SCP (Special Containment Procedures) Foundation
• Contributor Biographies