Holbrook, David

About the author: David Holbrook is an Emeritus Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge. He was a fellow of Kings College, Cambridge, and Director of English studies at Downing. In 1984 he was Hooker distinguished visiting Professor at MacMaster University.

Study of George MacDonald and the Image of Woman

2000 0-7734-7761-6
Examines the theory that MacDonald wrote his fantasies out of his private inner world, in an attempt to solve the problems of identity left him by his mother who died while he was very young, problems which pursued him through life. Throughout his work is found a perplexity about the figure of woman. On the one hand the image of woman is a source of great inspiration, as with the old woman spinning the thread of life in the Curdie stories, or in the image of idealised naked women in Phantastes. The study throws light on the association in the human mind between woman and death. He searches behind the religious impulses of MacDonald to try to find the psychological quest which the writer was trying to perform.