Maxfield Parrish
Maxfield Parrish was an American painter and illustrator active in the first half of the 20th century. He is known for idealized neo-classical imagery, his career spanned fifty years and was wildly successful: his painting Daybreak is the most popular art print of the 20th century. Maxfield Parrish was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to painter and etcher Stephen Parrish and Elizabeth Bancroft, his given name was Frederick Parrish, but he adopted Maxfield, his paternal grandmother's maiden name, as his middle finally as his professional name. He was raised in a Quaker society; as a child he began drawing for his own amusement, showed talent, his parents encouraged him. Between 1884 and 1886, his parents took Parrish to Europe, where he toured England and France, was exposed to architecture and the paintings by the old masters, studied at the Paris school of a Dr. Kornemann, he attended the Haverford School and studied architecture at Haverford College for two years beginning in 1888. To further his education in art, from 1892 to 1895 he studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under artists Robert Vonnoh and Thomas Pollock Anshutz.
After graduating from the program, Parrish went to Annisquam, Massachusetts where he and his father shared a painting studio. A year with his father's encouragement, he attended the Drexel Institute of Art, Science & Industry. Parrish entered into an artistic career that lasted for more than half a century, which helped shape the Golden Age of illustration and American visual arts. During his career, he produced 900 pieces of art including calendars, greeting cards, magazine covers. Parrish's early works were in black and white. In 1885, his work was on the Easter edition of Harper’s Bazaar, he did work for other magazines like Scribner's Magazine. He illustrated a children's book in 1897, Mother Goose in Prose written by L. Frank Baum. By 1900, Parrish was a member of the Society of American Artists. In 1903, he traveled to Europe again to visit Italy. Parrish took many commissions for commercial art until the 1920s. Parrish's commercial art included many prestigious projects, among which were Eugene Field's Poems of Childhood in 1904, such traditional works as Arabian Nights in 1909.
Books illustrated by Parrish are featured in A Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales in 1910, The Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics in 1911, The Knave of Hearts in 1925. Parrish was earning over $100,000 per year by 1910, when homes could be bought for $2,000. Parrish worked with popular magazines including Hearst's and Life, he created advertising for companies like Wanamaker's, Edison-Mazda Lamps and Oneida Cutlery. Parrish worked with Collier's from 1904 to 1913, he received a contract to deal with them for six years. He painted advertisements for D. M. Ferry Seed Company in 1916 and 1923, which helped him gain recognition in the eye of the public, his most well-known art work is Daybreak, produced in 1923. It features female figures in a landscape scene; the painting has undertones of Parrish blue. In the 1920s, Parrish turned away from illustration and concentrated on painting. In his forties, Parrish began working on large murals instead of just focusing on children's books, his works of art featured androgynous nudes in fantastical settings.
He made his living from calendars featuring his works. Parrish used Kitty Owen as a model in the 1920s. Susan Lewin posed for many works, became Parrish's longtime assistant. From 1918 to 1934, Parrish worked on calendar illustrations for General Electric. In 1931, Parrish declared to the Associated Press, "I'm done with girls on rocks", opted instead to focus on landscapes. Though never as popular as his earlier works, he profited from them, he would build scale models of the imaginary landscapes he wished to paint, using various lighting setups before deciding on a preferred view, which he would photograph as a basis for the painting. He lived in Plainfield, New Hampshire, near the Cornish Art Colony, painted until he was 91 years old, he was an avid machinist, referred to himself as "a mechanic who loved to paint". By 1935, Parrish painted landscapes. Parrish's art is characterized by vibrant colors, he achieved such luminous color through glazing. This process involves applying alternating bright layers of oil color separated by varnish over a base rendering.
Parrish used a blue and white monochromatic underpainting. Parrish used many other innovative techniques in his paintings, he would take pictures of models in black and white geometric prints and project the image onto his works. This technique allowed for his figures to be clothed in geometric patterns, while representing distortion and draping. Parrish would create his paintings by taking pictures, enlarging, or projecting objects, he would put them onto his canvas. He would cover them with clear glaze. Parrish's technique gave his paintings a more three-dimensional feel; the outer proportions and internal divisions of Parrish's compositions were calculated in accordance with geometric principles such as root rectangles and the golden ratio. In this Parrish was influenced by Jay Hambidge's theory of Dynamic Symmetry. Parrish's works continue to influence pop culture; the cover of the 1985 Bloom County cartoon collection Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things comprises elements of Daybreak, The Garden of Allah, The Lute Players.
The poster for The Princess Bride was inspired by Daybreak. In 2001, Parrish was featured in a US
Norman Rockwell
Norman Percevel Rockwell was an American author and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of American culture. Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over nearly five decades. Among the best-known of Rockwell's works are the Willie Gillis series, Rosie the Riveter, The Problem We All Live With, Saying Grace, the Four Freedoms series, he is noted for his 64-year relationship with the Boy Scouts of America, during which he produced covers for their publication Boys' Life and other illustrations. These works include popular images that reflect the Scout Oath and Scout Law such as The Scoutmaster, A Scout is Reverent and A Guiding Hand, among many others. Norman Rockwell was a prolific artist. Most of his works are either in public collections, or have been destroyed in fire or other misfortunes. Rockwell was commissioned to illustrate more than 40 books, including Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn as well as painting the portraits for Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Nixon, as well as those of foreign figures, including Gamal Abdel Nasser and Jawaharlal Nehru.
His portrait subjects included Judy Garland. One of his last portraits was of Colonel Sanders in 1973, his annual contributions for the Boy Scouts calendars between 1925 and 1976, were only overshadowed by his most popular of calendar works: the "Four Seasons" illustrations for Brown & Bigelow that were published for 17 years beginning in 1947 and reproduced in various styles and sizes since 1964. He painted six images for Coca-Cola advertising. Illustrations for booklets, posters, sheet music, playing cards, murals rounded out Rockwell's œuvre as an illustrator. Rockwell's work was dismissed by serious art critics in his lifetime. Many of his works appear overly sweet in the opinion of modern critics the Saturday Evening Post covers, which tend toward idealistic or sentimentalized portrayals of American life; this has led to the often-deprecatory adjective, "Rockwellesque". Rockwell is not considered a "serious painter" by some contemporary artists, who regard his work as bourgeois and kitsch.
Writer Vladimir Nabokov stated that Rockwell's brilliant technique was put to "banal" use, wrote in his book Pnin: "That Dalí is Norman Rockwell's twin brother kidnapped by Gypsies in babyhood". He is called an "illustrator" instead of an artist by some critics, a designation he did not mind, as, what he called himself. In his years, Rockwell began receiving more attention as a painter when he chose more serious subjects such as the series on racism for Look magazine. One example of this more serious work is The Problem We All Live With, which dealt with the issue of school racial integration; the painting depicts a young black girl, Ruby Bridges, flanked by white federal marshals, walking to school past a wall defaced by racist graffiti. This painting was displayed in the White House when Bridges met with President Obama in 2011. Norman Rockwell was born on February 3, 1894, in New York City, to Jarvis Waring Rockwell and Anne Mary "Nancy" Rockwell, born Hill, his earliest American ancestor was John Rockwell, from Somerset, who immigrated to colonial North America in 1635, aboard the ship Hopewell and became one of the first settlers of Windsor, Connecticut.
He had Jarvis Waring Rockwell, Jr. older by a year and a half. Jarvis Waring, Sr. was the manager of the New York office of a Philadelphia textile firm, George Wood, Sons & Company, where he spent his entire career. Rockwell transferred from high school to the Chase Art School at the age of 14, he went on to the National Academy of Design and to the Art Students League. There, he was taught by Thomas Fogarty, George Bridgman, Frank Vincent DuMond; as a student, Rockwell was given small jobs of minor importance. His first major breakthrough came at age 18 with his first book illustration for Carl H. Claudy's Tell Me Why: Stories about Mother Nature. After that, Rockwell was hired as a staff artist for Boys' Life magazine. In this role, he received 50 dollars' compensation each month for one completed cover and a set of story illustrations, it is said to have been his first paying job as an artist. At 19, he became the art editor for Boys' Life, published by the Boy Scouts of America, he held the job for three years, during which he painted several covers, beginning with his first published magazine cover, Scout at Ship's Wheel, which appeared on the Boys' Life September edition.
Rockwell's family moved to New York, when Norman was 21 years old. They shared a studio with the cartoonist Clyde Forsythe. With Forsythe's help, Rockwell submitted his first successful cover painting to the Post in 1916, Mother's Day Off, he followed that success with Circus Barker and Strongman, Gramps at the Plate, Redhead Loves Hatty Perkins, People in a Theatre Balcony, Man Playing Santa. Rockwell was published eight times on the Post cover within the first year. Rockwell published 323 original cover
Star Wars (film)
Star Wars is a 1977 American epic space-opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the beginning of the Star Wars franchise. Starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, David Prowse, James Earl Jones, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, the film focuses on the Rebel Alliance, led by Princess Leia, its attempt to destroy the Galactic Empire's space station, the Death Star. Star Wars was released in theatres in the United States on May 25, 1977, it earned $461 million in the U. S. and $314 million overseas, totaling $775 million. It surpassed Jaws to become the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial. When adjusted for inflation, Star Wars is the second-highest-grossing film in North America, the third-highest-grossing film in the world, it received ten Academy Award nominations. It was among the first films to be selected as part of the U. S. Library of Congress's National Film Registry as being "culturally or aesthetically significant".
At the time, it was the most recent film in the only one chosen from the 1970s. In 2004, its soundtrack was added to the U. S. National Recording Registry. Today, it is regarded as one of the most important films in the history of motion pictures; the film has been reissued multiple times at Lucas's behest, incorporating many changes including modified computer-generated effects, altered dialogue, re-edited shots, remixed soundtracks and added scenes. It launched an industry of tie-in products, including spin-off TV series, comic books, video games, amusement park attractions, merchandise including toys and clothing; the film's success led to two critically and commercially successful sequels, The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 and Return of the Jedi in 1983, to a prequel trilogy, a sequel trilogy, an animated film, two anthology films. The galaxy is in the midst of a civil war. Rebel spies have stolen plans to the Galactic Empire's Death Star, a colossal space station capable of destroying an entire planet.
Princess Leia, one of the Rebellion's leaders, has obtained the plans, but her starship is captured by an Imperial Star Destroyer under the command of the ruthless Darth Vader. Before she is captured, Leia hides the plans in the memory of astromech droid R2-D2, along with protocol droid C-3PO, flees in an escape pod to the desert planet below the starships, Tatooine; the droids are captured by Jawa traders, who sell them to moisture farmers Owen and Beru Lars and their nephew Luke Skywalker. While cleaning R2-D2, Luke accidentally triggers a holographic recording of Leia, in which she requests help from Obi-Wan Kenobi; the next morning, Luke finds R2-D2 missing, encounters "Old Ben" Kenobi, a hermit who reveals himself as Obi-Wan. He tells Luke of his days as one of the Jedi Knights, former peacekeepers of the Galactic Republic who derived their power from an energy field called the Force until being all but wiped out by the Empire. Contrary to what his uncle has told him, Luke learns that his father fought alongside Obi-Wan as a Jedi Knight until Vader, a former pupil of Obi-Wan's, turned to the dark side of the Force and murdered him.
Obi-Wan presents Luke with his father's old weapon: a lightsaber. R2-D2 plays Leia's message for Obi-Wan, in which she begs him to take the Death Star plans to her home planet of Alderaan and give them to her father for analysis. Obi-Wan invites Luke to learn the ways of the Force. Luke declines, but changes his mind after discovering that Imperials have killed his aunt and uncle and destroyed their farm. Obi-Wan and Luke visit a cantina in Mos Eisley, after a brief confrontation, they meet smuggler Han Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot Chewbacca. After negotiating a price, they join forces aboard the Millennium Falcon; the group discovers that Alderaan has been destroyed by the Death Star's superlaser—a show of force on order of the commanding officer, Grand Moff Tarkin. The Falcon is captured by the Death Star's tractor beam. Luke discovers that Leia is imprisoned on the Death Star, rescues her with the help of Han and Chewbacca in a swashbuckling series of escapes. After Obi-Wan sacrifices himself in a lightsaber duel with Darth Vader to enable the heroes to escape, the Falcon escapes amid a fierce dogfight with Imperial TIE starfighters.
Using a tracking beacon placed aboard the Falcon, the Imperials follow the rebels to the hidden base on Yavin 4. The Death Star plans reveal that it can be destroyed by triggering a chain reaction from an external exhaust port. Luke joins the Rebel fighter squadron, while Han collects his payment. In the ensuing battle, the Rebels suffer heavy losses after several unsuccessful runs. Vader leads a squadron of TIE fighters and prepares to attack Luke's X-wing, but Han returns and fires at the Imperial fighters, sending Vader spiraling away. Guided by Obi-Wan's spirit, Luke turns off his targeting computer and uses the Force to destroy the Death Star just before it can fire on the Rebel base. On Yavin 4, Leia awards Han with medals for their heroism. Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker: a young man raised by his aunt and uncle on Tatooine, who dreams of something more than his current life and learns the way of a Jedi. Lucas favored casting young actors. To play Luke, Lucas sought actors who could project integrity.
While reading for the character, Hamill found the dialogue to be odd because of its universe-embedded concepts. He chose to read it sinc
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths told by the ancient Greeks. These stories concern the origin and the nature of the world, the lives and activities of deities and mythological creatures, the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' own cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths in an attempt to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece and its civilization, to gain understanding of the nature of myth-making itself; the Greek myths were propagated in an oral-poetic tradition most by Minoan and Mycenaean singers starting in the 18th century BC. Two poems by Homer's near contemporary Hesiod, the Theogony and the Works and Days, contain accounts of the genesis of the world, the succession of divine rulers, the succession of human ages, the origin of human woes, the origin of sacrificial practices. Myths are preserved in the Homeric Hymns, in fragments of epic poems of the Epic Cycle, in lyric poems, in the works of the tragedians and comedians of the fifth century BC, in writings of scholars and poets of the Hellenistic Age, in texts from the time of the Roman Empire by writers such as Plutarch and Pausanias.
Aside from this narrative deposit in ancient Greek literature, pictorial representations of gods and mythic episodes featured prominently in ancient vase-paintings and the decoration of votive gifts and many other artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles. In the succeeding Archaic and Hellenistic periods and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an extensive influence on the culture and literature of Western civilization and remains part of Western heritage and language. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes. Greek mythology is known today from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period from c. 900 BC to c. 800 BC onward. In fact and archaeological sources integrate, sometimes mutually supportive and sometimes in conflict.
Mythical narration plays an important role in nearly every genre of Greek literature. The only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus; this work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens wrote on many of these topics, his writings may have formed the basis for the collection. Among the earliest literary sources are the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the "epic cycle", but these and lesser poems now are lost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the "Homeric Hymns" have no direct connection with Homer, they are choral hymns from the earlier part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiod, a possible contemporary with Homer, offers in his Theogony the fullest account of the earliest Greek myths, dealing with the creation of the world. Hesiod's Works and Days, a didactic poem about farming life includes the myths of Prometheus and the Five Ages.
The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, rendered yet more dangerous by its gods. Lyrical poets took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar and Simonides, bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion, relate individual mythological incidents. Additionally, myth was central to classical Athenian drama; the tragic playwrights Aeschylus and Euripides took most of their plots from myths of the age of heroes and the Trojan War. Many of the great tragic stories took on their classic form in these tragedies; the comic playwright Aristophanes used myths, in The Birds and The Frogs. Historians Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, geographers Pausanias and Strabo, who traveled throughout the Greek world and noted the stories they heard, supplied numerous local myths and legends giving little-known alternative versions. Herodotus in particular, searched the various traditions presented him and found the historical or mythological roots in the confrontation between Greece and the East.
Herodotus attempted to reconcile the blending of differing cultural concepts. The poetry of the Hellenistic and Roman ages was composed as a literary rather than cultic exercise, it contains many important details that would otherwise be lost. This category includes the works of: The Roman poets Ovid, Valerius Flaccus and Virgil with Servius's commentary; the Greek poets of the Late Antique period: Nonnus, Antoninus Liberalis, Quintus Smyrnaeus. The Greek poets of the Hellenistic period: Apollonius of Rhodes, Pseudo-Eratosthenes, Parthenius. Prose writers from the same periods who make reference to myths includ
Princess Leia
Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise, portrayed in films by Carrie Fisher. Introduced in the original Star Wars film in 1977, Leia is princess of the planet Alderaan, a member of the Imperial Senate and an agent of the Rebel Alliance, she thwarts the sinister Sith Lord Darth Vader and helps bring about the destruction of the Empire's cataclysmic superweapon, the Death Star. In The Empire Strikes Back, Leia commands a Rebel base and evades Vader as she falls in love with the smuggler, Han Solo. In Return of the Jedi, Leia leads the operation to rescue Han from the crime lord Jabba the Hutt, is revealed to be Vader's daughter and the twin sister of Luke Skywalker; the prequel film Revenge of the Sith establishes that the twins' mother is Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo, who dies after childbirth. Leia is adopted by Queen Breha Organa of Alderaan. In The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, Leia is the founder and General of the Resistance against the First Order.
She and Han have a son named Ben, who adopted the name Kylo Ren after turning to the dark side of the Force. In the Star Wars Legends series of novels and video games, which are set in an alternate continuity, Leia continues her adventures with Han and Luke after Return of the Jedi, fighting Imperial resurgences and new threats to the galaxy, she becomes the Chief of State of the New Republic and a Jedi Master, is the mother to three children by Han: Jaina and Anakin Solo. One of the more popular Star Wars characters, Leia has been called a 1980s icon, a feminist hero and model for other adventure heroines, she has appeared in many derivative works and merchandising, has been referenced or parodied in several TV shows and films. Her "cinnamon buns" hairstyle from Star Wars and metal bikini from Return of the Jedi have become cultural icons. Leia was created by Star Wars creator George Lucas, who in 1999 explained his early development of the main characters: The first talked about a princess and an old general.
The second version involved a father, his son, his daughter. Now the daughter has become Mark Hamill's character. There was the story of two brothers where I transformed one of them into a sister; the older brother was imprisoned, the young sister had to rescue him and bring him back to their dad. In the rough draft of Star Wars, Leia is the spoiled teenage daughter of King Kayos and Queen Breha of Aquilae, with two brothers and Windy. Leia was at one point "the daughter of Owen Lars and his wife Beru... Luke's cousin–together they visit the grave of his mother, who perished with his father on a planet destroyed by the Death Star." A story synopsis establishes Leia as "Leia Antilles", the daughter of Bail Antilles from the peaceful world of Organa Major. In the fourth draft it was established. Fisher was 19 when she was cast as Princess Leia, with actresses including Amy Irving, Cindy Williams and Jodie Foster up for the role. In 2014, InkTank reported that the extended list of "more than two dozen actresses" who had auditioned for Leia included Glenn Close, Farrah Fawcett, Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek, Sigourney Weaver, Cybill Shepherd, Jane Seymour, Anjelica Huston, Kim Basinger, Kathleen Turner, Geena Davis and Meryl Streep.
Asked about Streep in 2015, Fisher said, "I've never heard that one. But Jodie Foster was up for it... that one I knew the most. Amy Irving and Jodie, and I got it."The second draft of the Return of the Jedi screenplay contained dialogue in which Obi-Wan tells Luke he has a twin sister. She and their mother were "sent to the protection of friends in a distant system; the mother died shortly thereafter, Luke's sister was adopted by Ben's friends, the governor of Alderaan and his wife." Fisher explained in 1983: "Leia's real father left her mother when she was pregnant, so her mother married this King Organa. I was adopted and grew up set apart from other people because I was a princess."Composer John Williams created a musical leitmotif for Leia which recurs throughout the Star Wars saga. "Princess Leia's Theme" was recorded as a concert suite for the score of the 1977 film. Anthony Breznican of Entertainment Weekly describes Leia as a "diplomat, warrior, undercover agent". Mark Edlitz calls her "a smart, brave diplomat and warrior" in The Huffington Post.
Fisher told Rolling Stone in 1983:There are a lot of people who don't like my character in these movies. She has no family. From the first film, she was just front line and center; the only way they knew to make the character strong was to make her angry. In Return of the Jedi, she gets to be more supportive, more affectionate, she said in 2014: I would rather have played Han Solo. When I first read the script I thought that's the part to be, always sardonic. He's always that. I feel like a lot of the time Leia's either pissed or, thank God, sort of snarky, but I'm much more worried and pissed than Han Solo was, those aren't fun things to play... I had a lot of fun killing Jabba the Hutt, they asked me on the day. No! That's the best time I had as an actor, and the only reason to go into acting is. Introduced in the original 1977 film Star Wars, Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan is a member of the Imperial Senate, she is captured by Darth Vader on board
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction set in a fictional universe inspired by real world myth and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which became literature and drama. From the twentieth century it has expanded further into various media, including film, graphic novels and video games. Fantasy is distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror by the absence of scientific or macabre themes though these genres overlap. In popular culture, the fantasy genre is predominantly of the medievalist form. In its broadest sense, fantasy consists of works by many writers, artists and musicians from ancient myths and legends to many recent and popular works. Most fantasy uses other supernatural elements as a main plot element, theme, or setting. Magic and magical creatures are common in many of these worlds. An identifying trait of fantasy is the author's reliance on imagination to create narrative elements that do not have to rely on history or nature to be coherent; this differs from realistic fiction in that realistic fiction has to attend to the history and natural laws of reality, where fantasy does not.
An author applies his or her imagination to come up with characters and settings that are impossible in reality. Many fantasy authors use real-world mythology as inspiration. For instance, a narrative that takes place in an imagined town in the northeastern United States could be considered realistic fiction as long as the plot and characters are consistent with the history of a region and the natural characteristics that someone, to the northeastern United States expects. Fantasy has been compared to science fiction and horror because they are the major categories of speculative fiction. Fantasy is distinguished from science fiction by the plausibility of the narrative elements. A science fiction narrative is unlikely, though possible through logical scientific or technological extrapolation, where fantasy narratives do not need to be scientifically possible. Authors have to rely on the readers' suspension of disbelief, an acceptance of the unbelievable or impossible for the sake of enjoyment, in order to write effective fantasies.
Despite both genres' heavy reliance on the supernatural and horror are distinguishable. Horror evokes fear through the protagonists' weaknesses or inability to deal with the antagonists. Elements of the supernatural and the fantastic were a part of literature from its beginning. Fantasy elements occur throughout the ancient Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh; the ancient Babylonian creation epic, the Enûma Eliš, in which the god Marduk slays the goddess Tiamat, contains the theme of a cosmic battle between good and evil, characteristic of the modern fantasy genre. Genres of romantic and fantasy literature existed in ancient Egypt; the Tales of the Court of King Khufu, preserved in the Westcar Papyrus and was written in the middle of the second half of the eighteenth century BC, preserves a mixture of stories with elements of historical fiction and satire. Egyptian funerary texts preserve mythological tales, the most significant of which are the myths of Osiris and his son Horus. Folk tales with fantastic elements intended for adults were a major genre of ancient Greek literature.
The comedies of Aristophanes are filled with fantastic elements his play The Birds, in which an Athenian man builds a city in the clouds with the birds and challenges Zeus's authority. Ovid's Metamorphoses and Apuleius's The Golden Ass are both works that influenced the development of the fantasy genre by taking mythic elements and weaving them into personal accounts. Both works involve complex narratives in which humans beings are transformed into animals or inanimate objects. Platonic teachings and early Christian theology are major influences on the modern fantasy genre. Plato used allegories to convey many of his teachings, early Christian writers interpreted both the Old and New Testaments as employing parables to relay spiritual truths; this ability to find meaning in a story, not true became the foundation that allowed the modern fantasy genre to develop. The most well known fiction from the Islamic world was The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, a compilation of many ancient and medieval folk tales.
Various characters from this epic have become cultural icons in Western culture, such as Aladdin and Ali Baba. Hindu mythology was an evolution of the earlier Vedic mythology and had many more fantastical stories and characters in the Indian epics; the Panchatantra, for example, used various animal fables and magical tales to illustrate the central Indian principles of political science. Chinese traditions have been influential in the vein of fantasy known as Chinoiserie, including such writers as Ernest Bramah and Barry Hughart. Beowulf is among the best known of the Nordic tales in the English speaking world, has had deep influence on the fantasy genre. Norse mythology, as found in the Elder Edda and the Younger Edda, includes such figures as Odin and his fellow Aesir, dwarves, elves and giants; these elements have been directly imported into various fantasy works. The separate folklore of Ireland and Scotland has sometimes been us
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is an American children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since seen several reprints, most under the title The Wizard of Oz, the title of the popular 1902 Broadway musical adaptation as well as the iconic 1939 musical film adaptation. The story chronicles the adventures of a young farm girl named Dorothy in the magical Land of Oz, after she and her pet dog Toto, are swept away from their Kansas home by a cyclone; the book is one of the best-known stories in American literature and has been translated. The Library of Congress has declared it "America's greatest and best-loved homegrown fairytale." Its groundbreaking success and the success of the Broadway musical adapted from the novel led Baum to write thirteen additional Oz books that serve as official sequels to the first story. Baum dedicated the book "to my good friend & comrade, My Wife," Maud Gage Baum.
In January 1901, George M. Hill Company completed printing the first edition, a total of 10,000 copies, which sold out, it sold three million copies by the time it entered the public domain in 1956. The book was published by George M. Hill Company; the first edition had a printing of 10,000 copies and was sold in advance of the publication date of September 1, 1900. On May 17, 1900, the first copy came off the press; the public saw it for the first time at a book fair at the Palmer House in Chicago, July 5–20. Its copyright was registered on August 1. By October 1900, it had sold out and the second edition of 15,000 copies was nearly depleted. In a letter to his brother, Baum wrote that the book's publisher, George M. Hill, predicted a sale of about 250,000 copies. In spite of this favorable conjecture, Hill did not predict that the book would be phenomenally successful, he agreed to publish the book only when the manager of the Chicago Grand Opera House, Fred R. Hamlin, committed to making it into a musical stage play to publicize the novel.
The play The Wizard of Oz debuted on June 16, 1902. It was revised to suit adult preferences and was crafted as a "musical extravaganza," with the costumes modeled after Denslow's drawings. Hill's publishing company became bankrupt in 1901, so Baum and Denslow agreed to have the Indianapolis-based Bobbs-Merrill Company resume publishing the novel. Baum's son, Harry Neal, told the Chicago Tribune in 1944 that Baum told his children "whimsical stories before they became material for his books." Harry called his father the "swellest man I knew," a man, able to give a decent reason as to why black birds cooked in a pie could afterwards get out and sing. By 1938, more than one million copies of the book had been printed. Less than two decades in 1956, the sales of it had grown to three million copies in print. Dorothy is a young girl who lives with her Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, dog, Toto, on a farm on the Kansas prairie. One day and Toto are caught up in a cyclone that deposits them and the farmhouse into Munchkin Country in the magical Land of Oz.
The falling house has killed the Wicked Witch of the evil ruler of the Munchkins. The Good Witch of the North arrives with three grateful Munchkins and gives Dorothy the magical silver shoes that once belonged to the Wicked Witch; the Good Witch tells Dorothy that the only way she can return home is to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City and ask the great and powerful Wizard of Oz to help her. As Dorothy embarks on her journey, the Good Witch of the North kisses her on the forehead, giving her magical protection from harm. On her way down the yellow brick road, Dorothy attends a banquet held by a Munchkin named Boq; the next day, she frees a Scarecrow from the pole on which he is hanging, applies oil from a can to the rusted joints of a Tin Woodman, meets a Cowardly Lion. The Scarecrow wants a brain, the Tin Woodman wants a heart, the Cowardly Lion wants courage, so Dorothy encourages them to journey with her and Toto to the Emerald City to ask for help from the Wizard. After several adventures, the travelers arrive at the Emerald City and meet the Guardian of the Gates, who asks them to wear green tinted spectacles to keep their eyes from being blinded by the city's brilliance.
Each one is called to see the Wizard. He appears to Dorothy as a giant head, to the Scarecrow as a lovely lady, to the Tin Woodman as a terrible beast, to the Cowardly Lion as a ball of fire, he agrees to help them all. The Guardian warns them that no one has managed to defeat the witch; the Wicked Witch of the West sees the travelers approaching with her one telescopic eye. She sends a pack of wolves to tear them to pieces, she sends wild crows to peck their eyes out. She summons a swarm of black bees to sting them, but they are killed while trying to sting the Tin Woodman while the Scarecrow's straw hides the others, she sends a dozen of her Winkie slaves to attack them, but the Cowardly Lion stands firm to repel them. She uses the power of her Golden Cap to send the Winged Monkeys to capture Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion, unstuff the Scarecrow, dent the Tin Woodman. Dorothy is forced to become the witch's personal slave, while the witch schemes to steal her silver shoes; the witch tricks Dorothy out of one of her silver shoes.
Angered, she is shocked to see her melt away. The Winkies rejoice at being freed from her tyranny and help restuff the Scarec
