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This article evaluates the fascination of the protean serpent woman or siren Melusine, demonstrating the illustrious heritage of this hybrid foundress of the Lusignan dynasty. Her supernatural achievements are celebrated through history, literature, and culture, despite her betrayal by her weaker husband. As feminine nymph or maternal foundress, Melusine and her achievements serve as exemplary for powerful women. She represents woman castigated as abject, monstrous, and possessed of a terrifying vagina dentata from the voyeuristic male perspective, whose usurping gaze destroys her authority. She yet remains revered and desired for her creative life force and the phallic or hermaphroditic power represented by her tail. Whether as snake-tailed woman in Eden or connected with fertility goddesses or the Virgin Mary, the protean Melusine emerges as a magnetic, sovereign figure in her self-sufficient sexuality. Her transgressive prowess as a theriomorphic, transformative woman breaks through boundaries and overturns debilitating assumptions regarding her sex, blazoning her unruly force. Castigated as Other while revered as divine, her story rises above any slighting gaze to amaze us with her stunning tale or tail, evoking admiration despite all attempts to diminish her. Keywords: creative, maternal, monstrous, powerful foundress, serpent woman, transgressive, Misty Urban, Deva F. Kemmis, and Melissa Ridley Elmes, eds. Melusine's Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Misty Urban. Monstrous Women in Middle English Romance: [...]

I NOTICED IT last Christmas: It's the women who really hate Ebenezer Scrooge. In the opening scene of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, the main victims of Scrooge's scorn are [...]

The corpus of Indian women's literature has the power to define the borders of community, class, and gender. Challenging the existing patriarchal set-up, writers from all corners of the nation speak not only to subvert the patriarchy but also to claim their authority and bring subdued voices to the fore. In Volga's gynocentric retellings of the ancient epic 'Ramayana,' Volga's The Liberation of Sita and Yashodhara deconstruct the traditional epic by recentering female characters that were marginalized in the original. The Liberation of Sita and Yashodhara tell the story of Buddha's wife after his unexpected departure, and they exemplify an active remaking of the past, a revision, and a reinvention of tradition. Thus, the author creates a female collective by representing ancient tradition from alternative points of view and networking with women across ages and generations. This paper interprets the depiction of the female characters in the select texts not merely as exalted figures but as bold voices. The female characters of the epic are victims of patriarchy, yet they are not depicted as mere sufferers. The author has given them a strong voice and dignity, narrating words of wisdom which are the result of their experiences of struggle with pain. Hence, the study shows Volga's evolved understanding of feminism as more than a simple conflict between men and women, but a larger issue that cannot simply be reduced to binaries. Keywords: Volga, Ramayana, Myths, Epic tradition, Feminist literature, Gynocentrism, Indian literature, Telugu literature, Introduction 'Male writers are thought of as 'writers' first and then 'men.' As for female writers, they are first 'female' and only then 'writers'' (Shafak 39). The art of revisioning [...]

According to the Stiwanist theory, colonialism, oppressive traditional structures, and African men (sometimes women too) can all impede social reform and contribute to gender inequality in Africa. Various studies highlight the importance of formal education in contributing to the emancipation of women in contemporary societies, despite challenges brought by the aforementioned obstacles. The choice to discuss two highly esteemed African female novelists who are from different generations of writers is imperative in tracking the evolution of formal female education in lightening the patriarchal weight in black societies. Through a close reading and thematic analysis of Emecheta's Double Yoke and Adichie's Purple Hibiscus, this study shows that despite being confronted with sexist resistance in Nigeria between the 1970s and 1980s, black female university lecturers such as Miss Bulewao and Ifeoma serve as agents of socio-economic transformation cultivated by egalitarianism. In addition, the discussion on Obinze's mother in Adichie's Americanah highlights that while there are systems which are counter women's liberation stemming from society's sexist ideologies, the 21st century is showing an adjustment to the implications of the newly-educated African woman, especially as a professional and mother. Contribution Through the adoption of Stiwanism as a theoretical lens, this study contributes to the existing literary scholarship of African feminisms that advocate for a collective activism to combat gender disparity, with women as active participants. This is with particular attention to how sexism, as underpinned by neocolonialism and traditional ideologies, continues to oppress girls and women despite the influence of formalised education, which can also be attributed to women's economic dependence. Through the analysis of academic female characters in selected classical novels by Emecheta and Adichie as primary sources of data, the current article reveals the novelists' prophetic fictional narratives regarding the challenges and successes faced by higher education in addressing female marginalisation. This study is important for the present milieu because it emphasises the challenge of the continued exponential increase in gender bias against black female lecturers and scholars in and outside the academy, highlighting that women's access to and improved enrolment numbers in higher education institutions does not necessarily abolish gender inequality in education., Author(s): Lethabo Masha (corresponding author) [1]; Mphoto J. Mogoboya [1] Introduction For many years feminist literature has highlighted factors that perpetuate gender inequality and hinder a total transformation that is [...]

Strange is it that our bloods Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together, Would quite confound distinction, yet stands off In differences so mighty. [All's Well that Ends Well, [...]

Within the scholarly reception of Liv Koltzow's novels and short stories, a clear tendency is visible: even if her writings span different stylistic registers and explore different themes, what her [...]

The year 2013 marks the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Camilla Collett. At this juncture, it is safe to say that her position in the Norwegian canon is [...]

'Why did I ever come over here?'--Toibin, Brooklyn 180 'Ordinary affects are the varied, surging capacities to affect and be affected that give everyday life the quality of a continual [...]

This essay argues that Grace Paley's Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1974) reflects her opposition to the war in Vietnam via a formal and thematic ethics of understanding. Such an ethics includes various modes of indeterminacy and represents a counterpoint to discursive and epistemological habits Paley codes as masculine. This essay further claims that Paley's commitment to possibility for both readers and characters is informed by a maternal subjectivity defined by moral obligation. The dialectical utopianism of Herbert Marcuse, which was immensely influential with the period's counterculture, provides critical context for Paley's juxtaposition of activism and maternal care. Keywords: Grace Paley / Vietnam War / Herbert Marcuse / maternity, In October 1975, Grace Paley joined Donald Barthelme, William H. Gass, and Walker Percy at Washington and Lee University for a day-long discussion on contemporary fiction. Paley had just published [...]

'A man who should see Pan by daylight fell dead.' --D. H. Lawrence, 'Pan in America' 'Here we have one of the origins of artistic activity.' --Sigmund Freud, Three Essays [...]

One important witness has not yet been heard from. (1) The emancipation of the Negro race came about at the entrance to that which has been aptly termed the Woman's [...]

Robert Herrick wrote hundreds of poems about real or imagined women. It is generally conceded that his 'many fresh and fragrant mistresses' were purely imaginary, but understanding how he constructs [...]

In Debbie: An Epic, Lisa Robertson writes back to the Aeneid to retrieve previously unexpressed histories buried under old linguistic systems of power. As an alternative epic hero revisiting Virgil [...]

A study of the role of clothing as central to issues of characterization, description and historical reference in Marcel Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu. Focus on Odette de Crecy, one of the central characters in the novel, a courtesan who becomes the wife of Charles Swann but who first captivates the narrator's imagination when, as a child, he briefly sees her as a "Lady in Pink." Odette's role as a fashionable woman, as one of the best-dressed women in Parisian society, gives unity to her character. The description of her clothing, however, not only provides the occasion for an accurate recreation of contemporary dress codes. The links between clothing and a woman's body are explicitly explored in creating the character of Odette. Her femininity is defined specifically in terms of surfaces and objects and her personality seems to assume its reality from costume. Dress not only encloses her lovely appearance; it gives substance to her person and order to her life. Through the agency of dress this ordinary, even vulgar woman rises above her condition and enters a world of passion and poetry. (EMS)

Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece both figure a woman as one of two central characters. In the first, Venus tries to seduce Adonis; in the second, [...]

Henry James' representation of women in the Preface to 'The Portrait of a Lady' reveals a preoccupation with metaphors of vision and power. The focus of the narrator is on surveillance and masculine control, yet the self-referential structure makes authorship problematic. This narrative reflects on the sadomasochistic desire involved with sympathy and voyeurism.

Understanding the influence of John Milton's cultural context informs the portrayal of women in his works. Milton's depictions of the monarchy and females in epic poetry display many contemporary cultural assumptions concerning women. Milton's perspective on queenship and motherhood is displayed in his representation of the Virgin Mary.

Issues discussed concern the representation of working-class women, in particular the seamstress, in Victorian social protest fiction. The use of the seamstress as a non-threatening symbol of the brutality of industrial labor is addressed, along with the middle class reaction to this sympathetic character.

The novels 'Northanger Abbey' and 'The Female Quixote' may both be interpreted as proto-feminist novels despite their adherence to a traditional, patriarchal ideology. The novels incorporate an embedded feminist reading that depicts communities of women that offer models of conduct. Female readers can use these models for comparisons of their own behaviors, feelings and actions, just as the novels' heroines search for models or mother figures to guide them.

Dubliners begins with the figure of a boy gazing into a dying priest's house through a 'lighted square of window' that shines 'faintly and evenly' (1). Ulysses ends in a [...]

The elaborate structural design of Dos Passos's U.S.A. has the effect of splintering our sympathies, forcing us to divide our attention among not only a broad cast of characters but [...]

Ogbuide, the Queen of Women, comes from the Moon. She is good; the woman is beautiful, an invisible leader of the group. She helps the poor. When a poor person […]

The 1,200-line poem 'Epistles on Women Exemplifying their Character and Condition in Various Ages and Nations' by feminist Lucy Aikin is deemed as a work that re-written the entire history of western culture. How this poem delineated the practices and implications of a patriarchal social system is discussed.

The author identifies play and experimentation as common themes shared by literary works that combine travel and women's sexual behavior.

The article explores the link between novelist Edith Wharton and the character Lily in her work 'The House of Mirth' and the film adaptation by Terence Davies. While the ending in Davies' rendition differs from the novel, it maintains Wharton's focus on the social expectations of women during the era.

The depiction of female character, from the works of Ann Radcliff's 'The Mysteries of Udolpho,' is examined.

The article examines the poetic techniques used by William Shakespeare in 'A Lover's Complaint' focusing on his detachment of repentance from the female confessional narration. This was a departure for the majority of male-authored female confessional narrative, which tended to emphasize repentance, and presented a new dimension to female literary character.

The treatment of chivalry and equality, in women characters, from the study of poetry of Yvor Winters and Ben Jonson, is examined.