This original critical study examines the significance of mythology for contemporary black women writers. It illustrates the narrative strategies used to elucidate themes of mythmaking in such writers as Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Toni Cade Bambara, and Paule Marshall. She identifies the influences of different mythologies - European, African, Black American, and Native American - on black women writers who have appropriated them and reveals the skill with which they have woven them into the worlds of their own experiences.

This is a user-friendly dictionary and concordance to proper names used in the works of Chaucer. It offers a guide to the use of astrological, biblical, historical, literary and mythological names.

The Saracens were the Black Devils of medieval epics, romances and biblical exegesis, making it clear that the colour black always had negative connotations. However, the daughters of these Black Devils were usually described as beautiful white maidens, who married white Christian Knights.

This work studies two medieval translations of Aesop's fables, one in Latin (1497) and one in vernacular Italian (1526), with a close examination of how each translation reflected its audience and its translator. It offers close readings of the Feast of Tongues along with six fables common to both texts: The House Mouse and the Field Mouse, The Lion and the Mouse, The Nightingale and the Sparrow Hawk, The Wolf and the Lamb, The Fly and the Ant, and The Donkey and the Lap-Dog. The selected fables highlight imbalances of power, different stations in life, and the central question of how shall...

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.