Published 2012-03-01
“…There are some significant similarities betweenthe two men: both were approximate contemporaries who lived through the mostaggressive phase of British imperialism, both were highly successfully
writers whoearned their living by their pens, both wrote prolifically and fluently on a wide range of subjects,6 both were largely self-educated, both were interested in thesupernatural, both had had unhappy experiences in love at first but later maintainedlong-lasting marriages, and both were men with powerful faculties of imagination.There are, of course, significant differences also: Lang was a gifted intellectualwho had won a
fellowship at Oxford, a Homeric scholar, a poet with a gift forirony and humour, and one of the earliest exponents of the new science ofanthropological mythology; Haggard was less well educated and more seriousminded,he preferred action to ideas, was personally involved in the extension ofBritish rule in
Southern Africa,7 and had a close experience of African tribal life.This article sets out to investigate the relationship between these two men, and toassess the extent to which Lang’s classical and anthropological thinking shaped thenarratives of Haggard, especially those set in his imperialistic fantasy of theAfrican continent.…”
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