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Gillian Alban meticulously pursues the Fairy Melusine snake-woman image through the plot and the poetry of A. S. Byatt's novel Possession, into medieval legend, and beyond into her antecedents in ancient myth. The book describes the erotically inspiring force of Melusine's love story and draws parallels with goddesses such as Lamia, Ishtar or Inanna, Isis, and Asherah. Mother, creator, and leader, the figure of Melusine was ultimately vilified and tellingly converted into the demon of patriarchal accounts, as seen in the examples of Lilith, Medusa, Scylla, and the serpent in the Garden. Alban deconstructs part of Genesis, including the roles of Adam and Eve and Cain's crime, and illuminates the Old Testament worship of the goddess Asherah alongside the male Yahweh. A forceful exploration of literature, history, and myth, this study sweeps away limiting assumptions about the female sex. Melusine the Serpent Goddess restores the dignity acknowledged to women of old, making a forceful statement about the power and creativity of women.
Book Synopsis Melusine the Serpent Goddess in A. S. Byatt's Possession and in Mythology by : Gillian M. E. Alban
Download or read book Melusine the Serpent Goddess in A. S. Byatt's Possession and in Mythology written by Gillian M. E. Alban and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2003 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gillian Alban meticulously pursues the Fairy Melusine snake-woman image through the plot and the poetry of A. S. Byatt's novel Possession, into medieval legend, and beyond into her antecedents in ancient myth. The book describes the erotically inspiring force of Melusine's love story and draws parallels with goddesses such as Lamia, Ishtar or Inanna, Isis, and Asherah. Mother, creator, and leader, the figure of Melusine was ultimately vilified and tellingly converted into the demon of patriarchal accounts, as seen in the examples of Lilith, Medusa, Scylla, and the serpent in the Garden. Alban deconstructs part of Genesis, including the roles of Adam and Eve and Cain's crime, and illuminates the Old Testament worship of the goddess Asherah alongside the male Yahweh. A forceful exploration of literature, history, and myth, this study sweeps away limiting assumptions about the female sex. Melusine the Serpent Goddess restores the dignity acknowledged to women of old, making a forceful statement about the power and creativity of women.
The Medusa Gaze offers striking insights into the desires and frustrations of women through the narratives of the impressive contemporary novelists Angela Carter, Toni Morrison, Sylvia Plath, Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt, Iris Murdoch, Jeanette Winterson, Jean Rhys and Michèle Roberts. It illuminates women’s power and vulnerability as they construct their own egos in opposition to their hostile alter egos or others facing them in their mirrors, and fixes a panoptic gaze on the women stalking its pages, as they learn how to deflect the menacing gaze of others by returning their look defiantly back at them. Some stare back and win assurance; others are stared down, reduced to psychic trauma, madness and even suicide. The book shows how Freud’s, Sartre’s and Lacan’s androcentric views define the Medusa m/other as monstrous, and how the efforts of mothers to nurture may be slighted as inadequate or devouring. It presents Medusa and other goddess figures as inspirational, repelling harm through the ‘evil eye’ of their powerful gaze. Conversely, it also shows women who are condemned as monstrous Gorgons, trapped in enmity, rivalry and rage. Representing English, American and African American, Canadian and Caribbean writing, the works explored here include realistic, social narrative and magical realist writings, in addition to tales of the past and dystopian narratives.
Book Synopsis The Medusa Gaze in Contemporary Women’s Fiction by : Gillian M. E. Alban
Download or read book The Medusa Gaze in Contemporary Women’s Fiction written by Gillian M. E. Alban and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2017-08-21 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Medusa Gaze offers striking insights into the desires and frustrations of women through the narratives of the impressive contemporary novelists Angela Carter, Toni Morrison, Sylvia Plath, Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt, Iris Murdoch, Jeanette Winterson, Jean Rhys and Michèle Roberts. It illuminates women’s power and vulnerability as they construct their own egos in opposition to their hostile alter egos or others facing them in their mirrors, and fixes a panoptic gaze on the women stalking its pages, as they learn how to deflect the menacing gaze of others by returning their look defiantly back at them. Some stare back and win assurance; others are stared down, reduced to psychic trauma, madness and even suicide. The book shows how Freud’s, Sartre’s and Lacan’s androcentric views define the Medusa m/other as monstrous, and how the efforts of mothers to nurture may be slighted as inadequate or devouring. It presents Medusa and other goddess figures as inspirational, repelling harm through the ‘evil eye’ of their powerful gaze. Conversely, it also shows women who are condemned as monstrous Gorgons, trapped in enmity, rivalry and rage. Representing English, American and African American, Canadian and Caribbean writing, the works explored here include realistic, social narrative and magical realist writings, in addition to tales of the past and dystopian narratives.
What are myths and what are they for? Myths are stories that both tell us how to live and remind us of the inescapability and pull of the collective past. The Survival of Myth: Innovation, Singularity and Alterity explores the continuing power of primal stories to inhabit our thinking. An international range of contributors examine a range of texts and figures from the Bible to Cormac McCarthy and from Thor to the Virgin Mary to focus on the way that ancient stories both give access to the unconscious and offer individuals and communities personae or masks. Myths translated and recreated become, in this sense, very public acts about very private thoughts and feelings. The subtitle of the book, ‘Innovation, Singularity and Alterity,’ reflects the way in which the history of cultures in all genres is a history of innovation, of a search for new modes of expression which, paradoxically, often entails recourse to myth precisely because it offers narratives of singularity and otherness which may be readily appropriated. The individual contributors offer testament to the continuing significance of myth through its own constant metamorphosis, as it both reflects and transforms the societies in which it is (re)produced.
Book Synopsis The Survival of Myth by : Paul Hardwick
Download or read book The Survival of Myth written by Paul Hardwick and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2010-04-16 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are myths and what are they for? Myths are stories that both tell us how to live and remind us of the inescapability and pull of the collective past. The Survival of Myth: Innovation, Singularity and Alterity explores the continuing power of primal stories to inhabit our thinking. An international range of contributors examine a range of texts and figures from the Bible to Cormac McCarthy and from Thor to the Virgin Mary to focus on the way that ancient stories both give access to the unconscious and offer individuals and communities personae or masks. Myths translated and recreated become, in this sense, very public acts about very private thoughts and feelings. The subtitle of the book, ‘Innovation, Singularity and Alterity,’ reflects the way in which the history of cultures in all genres is a history of innovation, of a search for new modes of expression which, paradoxically, often entails recourse to myth precisely because it offers narratives of singularity and otherness which may be readily appropriated. The individual contributors offer testament to the continuing significance of myth through its own constant metamorphosis, as it both reflects and transforms the societies in which it is (re)produced.
Melusine’s Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth offers nineteen new critical essays from an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars examining the cultural, literary, and mythical inheritance of the legendary half-fairy, half-serpent Melusine.
Book Synopsis Melusine's Footprint by :
Download or read book Melusine's Footprint written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-11-13 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Melusine’s Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth offers nineteen new critical essays from an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars examining the cultural, literary, and mythical inheritance of the legendary half-fairy, half-serpent Melusine.
Contemporary aesthetics is characterized by generic mixing on the level of both form and content. The barriers between different media and different genres have been broken down in all literary art forms, whether it be theatre, poetry, or the novel. While the publishing industry is increasingly keen to label novels according to genre or sub-genre (“Chick Lit”, “Lad Lit”, “Gay fiction”, “Scottish fiction”, “New Historical Fiction”, “Crime fiction”, “Post-9/11 Fiction”), the novel itself (and novelists) persist in resisting generic categorizations as well as inviting them. Is this a move towards a new artistic liberty or does it simply testify to a confusion of identity? The “aesthetic supermarket” evoked by Lodge in 1992 does indeed seem to sum up the variety of choices open to writers of fiction today and a literary landscape characterized by crossover and hybridization. The familiar dialectic of realism versus experimentation has segued into a middle ground of consensus which is neither radical nor populist, but both at the same time. The techniques of postmodernism have become selling points for novels, and the Postmodern Condition itself seems little more than a narrative posture marketed for an increasingly wide audience. Whether they have recourse to a “repertoire of imposture” (Amis, Self, Winterson), as Richard Bradford would have it (The Novel Now, 2007), in other words “the abandonment of any obligation to explain or justify their excursions from credulity and mimesis”, or, like the New Puritans, make use of narrative minimalism in order to foreground their own peculiarities, contemporary novelists consistently draw attention to the fundamental instability of narrative process and genre. The much-feared apocalypse of the novel has failed to take place with the arrival of the new millennium, but generic game-playing and flickering, narrative hesitation and uncertainty continue to pose the question of what constitutes a novel today and to challenge its identity in a world where all culture is increasingly public, increasingly contested and increasingly multifarious. Thanks to theoretical approaches as well as analyses of specific works, this collection of essays aims to examine the concepts of generic instability and cross-fertilization, of narrative postures and impostures, and their constant redefinition of identity, which contaminates the very concept of genre. It demonstrates the diversity of generic practices in the novel today and furnishes us with undeniable evidence of how generic instability is fundamentally constitutive of the contemporary novel’s identity.
Book Synopsis Generic Instability and Identity in the Contemporary Novel by : Madelena Gonzalez
Download or read book Generic Instability and Identity in the Contemporary Novel written by Madelena Gonzalez and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2009-12-14 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary aesthetics is characterized by generic mixing on the level of both form and content. The barriers between different media and different genres have been broken down in all literary art forms, whether it be theatre, poetry, or the novel. While the publishing industry is increasingly keen to label novels according to genre or sub-genre (“Chick Lit”, “Lad Lit”, “Gay fiction”, “Scottish fiction”, “New Historical Fiction”, “Crime fiction”, “Post-9/11 Fiction”), the novel itself (and novelists) persist in resisting generic categorizations as well as inviting them. Is this a move towards a new artistic liberty or does it simply testify to a confusion of identity? The “aesthetic supermarket” evoked by Lodge in 1992 does indeed seem to sum up the variety of choices open to writers of fiction today and a literary landscape characterized by crossover and hybridization. The familiar dialectic of realism versus experimentation has segued into a middle ground of consensus which is neither radical nor populist, but both at the same time. The techniques of postmodernism have become selling points for novels, and the Postmodern Condition itself seems little more than a narrative posture marketed for an increasingly wide audience. Whether they have recourse to a “repertoire of imposture” (Amis, Self, Winterson), as Richard Bradford would have it (The Novel Now, 2007), in other words “the abandonment of any obligation to explain or justify their excursions from credulity and mimesis”, or, like the New Puritans, make use of narrative minimalism in order to foreground their own peculiarities, contemporary novelists consistently draw attention to the fundamental instability of narrative process and genre. The much-feared apocalypse of the novel has failed to take place with the arrival of the new millennium, but generic game-playing and flickering, narrative hesitation and uncertainty continue to pose the question of what constitutes a novel today and to challenge its identity in a world where all culture is increasingly public, increasingly contested and increasingly multifarious. Thanks to theoretical approaches as well as analyses of specific works, this collection of essays aims to examine the concepts of generic instability and cross-fertilization, of narrative postures and impostures, and their constant redefinition of identity, which contaminates the very concept of genre. It demonstrates the diversity of generic practices in the novel today and furnishes us with undeniable evidence of how generic instability is fundamentally constitutive of the contemporary novel’s identity.
Take three exciting medieval romances, translate them - two for the first time - into modern English verse, and you'll have only part of Marijane Osborn's Romancing the Goddess. Osborn introduces and translates the three tales, all dealing with women cast adrift upon the northern and Mediterranean seas, then shows how the stories forge a hitherto missing link with worship of a savior goddess in the distant past.
Book Synopsis Romancing the Goddess by : Marijane Osborn
Download or read book Romancing the Goddess written by Marijane Osborn and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Take three exciting medieval romances, translate them - two for the first time - into modern English verse, and you'll have only part of Marijane Osborn's Romancing the Goddess. Osborn introduces and translates the three tales, all dealing with women cast adrift upon the northern and Mediterranean seas, then shows how the stories forge a hitherto missing link with worship of a savior goddess in the distant past.
Examining historical water use and ideology diachronically and cross regionally, this book reveals how religion, politics, science and social relationships transformed and were transformed by the manipulation of, uses of, and disputes over water in daily life, ceremonies, and literature.
Book Synopsis The Nature and Function of Water, Baths, Bathing and Hygiene from Antiquity through the Renaissance by : Cynthia Kosso
Download or read book The Nature and Function of Water, Baths, Bathing and Hygiene from Antiquity through the Renaissance written by Cynthia Kosso and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009-03-25 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining historical water use and ideology diachronically and cross regionally, this book reveals how religion, politics, science and social relationships transformed and were transformed by the manipulation of, uses of, and disputes over water in daily life, ceremonies, and literature.
This comprehensive study of A. S. Byatt’s work spans virtually her entire career and offers insightful readings of all of Byatt’s works of fiction up to and including her Man-Booker-shortlisted novel The Children’s Book (2009). The authors combine an accessible overview of Byatt’s œuvre to date with close critical analysis of all her major works. Uniquely, the book also considers Byatt’s critical writings and journalism, situating her beyond the immediate context of her fiction. The authors argue that Byatt is not only important as a storyteller, but also as an eminent critic and public intellectual. Advancing the concept of ‘critical storytelling’ as a hallmark of Byatt’s project as a writer, the authors retrace Byatt’s wide-ranging engagement with both literary and critical traditions. This results in positioning Byatt in the wider literary landscape. This book has broad appeal, including fellow researchers, undergraduate and postgraduate students, plus general enthusiasts of Byatt’s work.
Book Synopsis A.S. Byatt by : Alexa Alfer
Download or read book A.S. Byatt written by Alexa Alfer and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-18 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive study of A. S. Byatt’s work spans virtually her entire career and offers insightful readings of all of Byatt’s works of fiction up to and including her Man-Booker-shortlisted novel The Children’s Book (2009). The authors combine an accessible overview of Byatt’s œuvre to date with close critical analysis of all her major works. Uniquely, the book also considers Byatt’s critical writings and journalism, situating her beyond the immediate context of her fiction. The authors argue that Byatt is not only important as a storyteller, but also as an eminent critic and public intellectual. Advancing the concept of ‘critical storytelling’ as a hallmark of Byatt’s project as a writer, the authors retrace Byatt’s wide-ranging engagement with both literary and critical traditions. This results in positioning Byatt in the wider literary landscape. This book has broad appeal, including fellow researchers, undergraduate and postgraduate students, plus general enthusiasts of Byatt’s work.
This monograph is a study of the work of British author A. S. Byatt, exploring the cultural representation of the woman intellectual in her fiction. It argues that Byatt’s representations of this figure show narratives of intellectual women to be inherently mythopoeic, or capable of restructuring the myth of the intellectual as male by default. This mythopoeia is, furthermore, intrinsically feminist in function, thus potentially broadening the conventional, limited view of women in intellectual history. The book will be the first study of Byatt’s work to examine this figure in detail, and the first study of women intellectuals in historical and literary discourse to apply concepts of mythopoeia and sexual difference in ways that allow new readings of women’s status and work in public spheres.
Book Synopsis A. S. Byatt and Intellectual Women by : Leanne Bibby
Download or read book A. S. Byatt and Intellectual Women written by Leanne Bibby and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph is a study of the work of British author A. S. Byatt, exploring the cultural representation of the woman intellectual in her fiction. It argues that Byatt’s representations of this figure show narratives of intellectual women to be inherently mythopoeic, or capable of restructuring the myth of the intellectual as male by default. This mythopoeia is, furthermore, intrinsically feminist in function, thus potentially broadening the conventional, limited view of women in intellectual history. The book will be the first study of Byatt’s work to examine this figure in detail, and the first study of women intellectuals in historical and literary discourse to apply concepts of mythopoeia and sexual difference in ways that allow new readings of women’s status and work in public spheres.
This volume provides sustained critical attention on Byatt’s wonder tales, both the stand-alone tales and those which are embedded in the wider frame of a novel or novella. In this light, it examines Byatt’s claim that her wonder tales “are modern literary stories and they do play quite consciously with a postmodern creation and recreation of old forms” through a revisitation of the wonder tale in a productive dialogue with tradition as an expanded recognition of this fertile creative-critical dialogue with regards to the significance of the wonder tale in Byatt’s fictional work. The book evinces a fresh variety of conceptions and approaches to Byatt’s wonder tales, some spanning several tales and others focussing on a specific wonder tale, all thoroughly observant of the nature and workings of the relationship between story or novel and genre or tale, and theoretically informed by innovative critical approaches.
Book Synopsis Wonder Tales in the Fiction of A. S. Byatt by : Alexandra Cheira
Download or read book Wonder Tales in the Fiction of A. S. Byatt written by Alexandra Cheira and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2023-01-19 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides sustained critical attention on Byatt’s wonder tales, both the stand-alone tales and those which are embedded in the wider frame of a novel or novella. In this light, it examines Byatt’s claim that her wonder tales “are modern literary stories and they do play quite consciously with a postmodern creation and recreation of old forms” through a revisitation of the wonder tale in a productive dialogue with tradition as an expanded recognition of this fertile creative-critical dialogue with regards to the significance of the wonder tale in Byatt’s fictional work. The book evinces a fresh variety of conceptions and approaches to Byatt’s wonder tales, some spanning several tales and others focussing on a specific wonder tale, all thoroughly observant of the nature and workings of the relationship between story or novel and genre or tale, and theoretically informed by innovative critical approaches.
