{"product_id":"castle-tzingal","title":"Castle Tzingal","description":"With this poem, Fred Chappell takes his readers far from the southern landscape and familiar passions of his acclaimed Midquest tetralogy. He tells instead of a forbidding medieval castle ruled by a mad king and peopled by bitter, scheming grotesques and melancholy weaklings who cower at the sound of the sweet, sad voice of truth that haunts their nights.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eCastle Tzingal \u003c\/i\u003eis a fairy tale without moral or happy ending, a tale in which lies and self-deceptions take the place of ogres and in which moral corruption is the dragon to be slain. In a series of highly formal dramatic monologues, Chappell presents the corrupt longings and fears of the court's manipulative astrologer, its forlorn queen, a pensioned admiral, a seductive page, and the homunculus, born of chemicals and fire, who spies on them all:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat things I might say if I so inclined!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The astrologer's passion for a comely page\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Is news; Queen Frynna has no peace of mind\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Since a nimble harpist sojourned here\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Last twelvemonth; there's a wealthy vein of silver\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Runs beneath our Castle Tzingal; the magpie\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Singing in the courtyard wicker cage\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Is a transformed enemy sorcerer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e This kind if information finds its flowering\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In time; all knowledge becomes of use,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And when it does I bear it to the King.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRuling over this monstrous court is King Tzingal himself, self-proclaimed \"\"great lord of toads\"\", whose only power is hatred and whose reign can only be ended when his dismal kingdom is finally overrun by truth, by poetry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSet in a mythical kingdom in a mythical age, \u003ci\u003eCastle Tzingal\u003c\/i\u003e is a political fairy tale that speaks with the vivid, sometimes harsh truth and knowledge of our most fevered nightmares.","brand":"Louisiana State University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55807326683480,"sku":"9780807112038","price":19.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9780807112038_b4f062ad-bf4e-4cc1-8952-62682fa39073.jpg?v=1778679023","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/castle-tzingal","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}