A01=Theodore Ziolkowski
Author_Theodore Ziolkowski
Category=DSB
conspiracy
Cult
Elders of Zion
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Freemasonry
Illuminati
occultism
Rosicrucian
secret society
Templar
Product details
- ISBN 9781421409580
- Weight: 476g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 10 Oct 2013
- Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Fascination with the arcane is a driving force in this comprehensive survey of conspiracy fiction. Theodore Ziolkowski traces the evolution of cults, orders, lodges, secret societies, and conspiracies through various literary manifestations-drama, romance, epic, novel, opera-down to the thrillers of the twenty-first century. Lure of the Arcane considers Euripides's Bacchae, Andreae's Chymical Wedding, Mozart's The Magic Flute, and Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, among other seminal works. Mimicking the genre's quest-driven narrative arc, the reader searches for the significance of conspiracy fiction and is rewarded with the author's cogent reflections in the final chapter. After much investigation, Ziolkowski reinforces Umberto Eco's notion that the most powerful secret, the magnetic center of conspiracy fiction, is in fact "a secret without content."
Theodore Ziolkowski is a professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at Princeton University. He is the author of Alchemist in Literature: From Dante to the Present.
