Description
Book SynopsisSpring Man: A Belief Legend between Folklore and Popular Culture deconstructs the nationalistic myth of Spring Man that was created after the Second World War in visual culture and literature and presents his original form as an ambiguous ghostly denizen of oral culture. Petr Janeček analyzes the archetypal character, social context, and cultural significance of this fascinating phenomenon with help of dozens of accounts provided by period eyewitnesses, oral narratives, and other sources. At the same time, the author illustrates the international origin of the tales in the originally British migratory legend of Spring-heeled Jack that reaches back to the second third of the 19th century and draws parallels between the Czech myth of spring man and similar urban phantom narratives popular in the 1910s Russia, 1940s U.S. and Slovakia, 1950s Germany, as well as other parts of the world.
Table of ContentsIntroduction – Urban Phantom between Comparative Folkloristics and Ethnology
Chapter 1. The Birth of a Legend – Spring Man in Czech Folklore and Oral History
Chapter 2. Phantoms of the Industrial Age – The Cultural Evolution of Spring Man
Chapter 3. The Social and Cultural Functions of Urban Demonology
Chapter 4. A Superhero for Every Regime – Spring Man in Visual Culture and Literature
