From Hermes to Coyote to Brer Rabbit, cultures ancient and modern have had their tricksters and their trickster tales. With mischief and mockery as their hallmarks, such figures have often defined what is acceptable in a society by doing precisely the opposite.
As William J. Hynes and William G. Doty tell it, the often “shape shifting” tricksters have been hard to pin down for study. Scholarly efforts, they write, have been split between focusing on the trickster as a universal archetype and emphasizing culturally specific qualities. In a new collection of essays, Mythical Trickster Figures: Contours, Contexts, and Criticisms (University of Alabama Press; 265 pages; $41.95), the editors Mr. Hynes and Mr. Doty and their fellow contributors present both perspectives. Writings in the book include an attempt by Mr. Hynes to identify six common trickster characteristics; an essay on Hermes by Mr. Doty; and a piece, written by Mr. Hynes and Thomas J. Steele, on the transformation of Peter, Jesus’s apostle, into a trickster figure in folk cultures of the American Southwest.
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