A Green and Pagan Land

Description

British literature often refers to pagan and classical themes through richly detailed landscapes that suggest more than a mere backdrop of physical features. The myth-inspired writings of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Algernon Blackwood, Aleister Crowley, Lord Dunsany and even Kenneth Grahame’s *The Wind in the Willows* informed later British films and television dramas such as *The Owl Service* (1969-70), *Blood on Satan’s Claw* (1971), *The Wicker Man* (1973), *Excalibur* (1981) and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). The author analyzes the evocative language and esthetics of landscapes in literature, film, television and music, and how psycho-geography is used to explore the influence of the past on the present.