Reading witchcraft : stories of early English witches / Marion Gibson.
On the surface of it, Reading Witchcraft has an interesting and provocative premise. The Author has taken the relatively small body of Jacobean and early Elizabethan wotchcraft pamphlets and proposed that these documents are important and need to be taken seriously. This reviewer looked forward to a...
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| Online Access: |
Full Text (via Taylor & Francis) |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
London ; New York :
Routledge,
©1999.
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | On the surface of it, Reading Witchcraft has an interesting and provocative premise. The Author has taken the relatively small body of Jacobean and early Elizabethan wotchcraft pamphlets and proposed that these documents are important and need to be taken seriously. This reviewer looked forward to a careful analytical presentation of some of the documents, a rpesentation written in the light of the multidisciplinary program at Exeter. Such an approach to the study of the witchcraft pamphlets is nothing new. Scholars working in the area of English witchcraft studies know these documents virtually from emmory. Earlier historians have suggested we use these pamphlets as important primary documents and have analyzed them. They were presented by C. L'Estrange Ewen in his anthology, Witchcraft and Demonology, in 1933. But, it is certainly worthwhile to encourage a detailed study of these documents and to not dismiss them out of hand as being bits of inflammatory and sensational popular literature. Gibson proposes furhter that the documents need careful examination and categorizing deconstruction as she puts it, to help the historian or sociologist evaluate the data presented. This approach also soed not present a problem. Questions to be asked include: What exactly was a witchcraft pamphlet?"--Amazon.ca. "Reading Witchcraft explores the stories told by and about 'witches' and their 'victims', and questions what can be recovered from their trial records, early news books, pamphlets and personal accounts. In her wide-ranging selection of original sources, Marion Gibson uncovers truth, fiction and incertitude in stories of witchcraft. Who told them and why? How were they recorded? And how might they have been distorted or stereotyped?" "Reading Witchcraft looks closely at these legal documents and printed pamphlets and shows that their representations of witchcraft are far from straightforward. Even the simplest story can mask a complex creative process which sometimes led to the deaths of innocent people. We are left with a challenging record of the power of the human imagination."--Jacket. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (vii, 242 pages) |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 195-233) and index. |
| ISBN: | 0203976444 9780203976449 |
| Source of Description, Etc. Note: | Print version record. |