And Thereby Hangs a Tale: A Critical Anatomy of (Popular) Tales

This collection of twelve original essays explores the politics of tale-telling across the field of English Studies. A programmatic introduction uses the fuzzy boundaries of tales to argue that their indeterminacy and polymorphous quality is responsible for the endless attraction, proliferation, and transgressive potential of the ‘tale’ as a literary form. The case studies address representative developments in British culture, focussing on the tales’ potential for cultural critique in literature, film, music and other cultural practices. Four sections cover ‘Shakespeare Retold’, ‘Victorian Tales’, ‘Fairy Tales Revisited’, and ‘Narrating (National/Cultural) Identity’. Topics include classic fairy tales and their rewritings; melodramatic, Gothic and fantasy fiction and film; writings about the condition of England and negotiations of Irish identity; discourses of Empire in public spectacles; and every-day life represented in popular music. On each of them hangs a tale.