«Muñoz Corcuera, A. & Di Biase E.T. (Eds.). (2012). Barrie, Hook and Peter Pan: Studies in Contemporary Myth; Estudios sobre un mito contemporáneo. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing»
| Autor: | Ana Fernández-Caparrós Turina |
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| Rok vydání: | 2013 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | International Journal of English Studies. 13:171 |
| ISSN: | 1989-6131 1578-7044 |
| DOI: | 10.6018/ijes/2013/1/165931 |
| Popis: | Munoz Corcuera, A. & Di Biase E.T. (Eds.). (2012). Barrie, Hook and Peter Pan: Studies in Contemporary Myth; Estudios sobre un mito contemporaneo. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 310 pages. ISBN 978- 1443840026The recent publication of the bilingual critical volume Barrie, Hook and Peter Pan, edited by Alfonso Munoz and Elisa T. Di Biase should be applauded for several reasons, not the least of which, like the myth it seeks to explore and celebrate, its being full of magic and wonderful surprises. As many other collections of critical essays, it is a work resulting from a scholarly gathering, the international conference celebrated at Universidad Complutense de Madrid on the 14 and 15 of March 2011, "One Hundred Years of Peter and Wendy". Yet, this is no ordinary volume of conference proceedings. Firstly, the fact that a group of Spanish young scholars were responsible for organizing in Madrid the only centennial academic celebration of James Matthew Barrie's ground-breaking novel is a first significant event that bespeaks the burgeoning influence of English Studies in our country. Secondly, that the British publishing house Cambridge Scholars should have edited a volume with nine essays written in English and eight in Spanish -the introductory essay being really the only bilingual text- is yet another promising and encouraging sign of the increasing acceptance of Spanish as a major influential academic language and a recognition of a distinctively international community of scholars. In this volume there are in fact contributions by academics coming from regions as diverse as Scotland, Mexico, France, United States, Ethiopia and Spain.A deceptively simple cover image of a silver thimble upon a black background, dimly emerging from the dark with a caption below stating "This is not a thimble...", designed by Michelle Erazo, already provides a forceful glimpse into the nature of Barrie's work and of the volume itself. Indeed, the deliberate confusion between thimble and kiss that Wendy creates when she asks the boy, "Surely you know what a kiss is?" - and, upon intuiting he does not, gives him instead the silver cap "not to hurt his feelings"1 - is among the most memorable scenes of Peter and Wendy. Then, the reference to Rene Magritte's iconic painting 'La trahison des images' that the cover image further plays with, quoting its tricky inscription "Ceci n'est pas une pipe", is not intended here so much as an ironic postmodern gesture but rather, one feels, as an homage. In fact, it seems to work perfectly to call attention from the very beginning to what both the art of twentieth century avant-garde and modernist writing sought to dismantle: the conventional correspondence between words, objects and images, exploring instead their more complex or hidden relationships. As different as the works of the Belgian painter and the Scottish writer are (and the volume here reviewed does not intend to establish a connection between them at all), they have both elicited a significant amount of psychoanalytic critical readings. The volume edited by Munoz Corcuera and Di Biase shows that a hundred years after the publication of the novel the psychoanalytic critical apparatus is still the most widely chosen tool to unravel the mysteries of Barrie's fictional world. It also shows, however, firstly, that this kind of criticism has transcended the old analyses centred too much on the author, or incapable of distinguishing between the authorial persona and the narrative voice of a fictional world; and, secondly, that there are many other alternative paths to approach the Peter Pan myth and "the immense depth and semiological richness of Barrie's work" (xiii) . Their multidisciplinary compilation of critical essays, covering a variety of disciplines ranging from literary theory, to postcolonial studies, comparative literature and pedagogy is a good proof of it.The book is divided into six sections that rather than grouping the articles according to common theoretical frameworks, juxtaposes them instead "under the caption of an image emanating from Peter Pan that metaphorically points to the thread of the reflections"(xiv) it discloses, a quite obtuse description to justify what is nonetheless an interesting and evocative choice. … |
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