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Stories of ghostly spirits who return to this world to warn of danger, to prophesy, to take revenge, to request proper burial, or to comfort the living fascinated people in ancient times just as they do today. In this innovative, interdisciplinary study, the author combines a modern folkloric perspective with literary analysis of ghost stories from classical antiquity to shed new light on the stories' folk roots. The author begins by examining ancient Greek and Roman beliefs about death and the departed and the various kinds of ghost stories which arose from these beliefs. She then focuses on the longer stories of Plautus, Pliny, and Lucian, which concern haunted houses. Her analysis illuminates the oral and literary transmission and adaptation of folkloric motifs and the development of the ghost story as a literary form. In her concluding chapter, the author also traces the influence of ancient ghost stories on modern ghost story writers, a topic that will interest all readers and scholars of tales of hauntings.

Classical literature --- -Ghost stories, Classical --- -Ghosts --- -Ghosts in literature --- Literature and folklore --- -Literature and folklore --- -Folklore and literature --- Literature and folk-lore --- Folklore --- Phantoms --- Specters --- Spectres --- Apparitions --- Haunted places --- Classical ghost stories --- Classical fiction --- Literature, Classical --- Literature --- Literature, Ancient --- Greek literature --- Latin literature --- History and criticism --- Ghosts in literature. --- Ghost stories, Classical --- Ghosts in literature --- Ghosts --- Folklore and literature --- History and criticism. --- Classical literature - History and criticism. --- Ghost stories, Classical - History and criticism. --- Literature and folklore - Greece. --- Literature and folklore - Rome. --- Ghosts - Greece. --- Ghosts - Rome.

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Examining works by Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Faith Ringgold, and Betye Saar, this innovative book frames black women's aesthetic sensibilities across art forms. Investigating the relationship between vernacular folk culture and formal expression, this study establishes how each of the four artists engaged the identity issues of the 1960s and used folklore as a strategy for crossing borders in the works they created during the following two decades.

As a dynamic, open-ended process, folklore historically has enabled African-descended people to establish differential identity, resist dominance, and affirm group solidarity. This book documents the use of expressive forms of folklore in the fiction of Morrison and Marshall and the use of material forms of folklore in the visual representations of Ringgold and Saar. Offering a conceptual paradigm of a folk aesthetic to designate the practices these women use to revise and reverse meanings—especially meanings imposed on images such as Aunt Jemima and Sambo—Crossing Borders through Folklore explains how these artists locate sites of intervention and reconnection. From these sites, in keeping with the descriptive and prescriptive formulations for art during the sixties, Morrison, Marshall, Ringgold, and Saar articulate new dimensions of consciousness and creatively theorize identity.

Crossing Borders through Folklore is a significant and creative contribution to scholarship in both established and still- emerging fields. This volume also demonstrates how recent theorizing across scholarly disciplines has created elastic metaphors that can be used to clarify a number of issues. Because of its interdisciplinary approach, this study will appeal to students and scholars in many fields, including African American literature, art history, women's studies, diaspora studies, and cultural studies.

American fiction --- Literature and folklore --- Women and literature --- African American women in literature. --- African Americans in literature. --- African American women artists. --- African Americans --- African American art. --- Folklore in art. --- Afro-American art --- Art, African American --- Negro art --- Ethnic art --- Afro-American women artists --- Women artists, African American --- Women artists --- Afro-Americans in literature --- Negroes in literature --- Afro-American women in literature --- Literature --- Folklore and literature --- Literature and folk-lore --- Folklore --- African American authors --- History and criticism. --- Women authors --- Art --- History of civilization --- folklore --- African American --- vrouw in de kunst --- United States --- folklore [discipline] --- United States of America