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基本説明
This study treats the appearance of the monstrous woman in Middle English romance narratives as a self-conscious literary trope that reflects on, and often criticizes, the grounds of philosophical, cultural, and narrative discourse that place women both inside and outside medieval culture, constructing them as Other by biological and social difference yet relying on them for the reproduction and healthy maintenance of the male-governed social order.
Full Description
Building on monster theory and adding to research on medieval women in literature, this study reclaims the Middle English romance as a sophisticated literary strategy that, in its narrative reflexivity - and its use of a fictionalized thirdspace - reveals how medieval rhetoric essentially makes women into monsters.
Contents
Foreword by Professor Andrew Galloway; Acknowledgements; IntroductionMonsters, Women, and the Work of Romance; Monstrous Women in Medieval Literary Traditions; Monster as Signifier; Women and Medieval Misogyny; Romance in England and its Relationship to Women; The Fictional Possibilities of the Medieval Romance; Methodology; 1. The Fate of Melusine in England; Melusine's Origins; Melusine's Analogues in Art and Myth; Woman, Monster, Evil; Introducing Melusine; 2. Melusine's Monstrosity; Melusine's Fairy Heritage; Melusine's Serpent Form; Melusine as Courtly Paragon; Melusine's Transformations; Melusine's Crime; Melusine's Legacy; Melusine's English Reception; 3. The Rehabilitation of Medea; Backgrounds to the Middle English Medea; Chaucer's Medea; Gower's Medea; Caxton's Medea; Conclusion; 4. Exiled Queens and Monstrous Matriarchs; Meaningful Violence; Problematic Virtue and Monstrous Queens; Gower's Constance: Moral Motherhood; Chaucer's Custance: "Grace" and "Place"; Monstrous Relations: Fairy Births and the Threat of Incest; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
