| Description |
xi, 269 pages ; 23 cm |
| Contents |
1. Performances of exclusion -- 2. Myth and psychoanalysis: legitimate and illegitimate. The traditional mythology of the exception. The Freudian attempt to universalise the particular. The private uses of mythology -- 3. Mythical histories, historical myths -- 4. A female genealogy: the en-gendering of George Sand -- 5. Opposition and revolution: Olympe de Gouges and the rights of the dispossessed -- 6. The male/female Messiah: Flora Tristan -- 7. My mother the Revolution: Louise Michel -- 8. Symbolic delegitimation. Stendhal and the mother's line. Nerval and the maternal space. Three Baudelairean narratives. Sartre the 'faux-batard' -- 9. 'Better to reign in Hell...'. Giving birth to my grandmother: Leduc. Genet: the flowering of the name -- 10. Delegitimation by proxy. Freud. Sartre. Derrida -- 11. Conclusion |
| Summary |
In this original and highly accomplished study, Marie Maclean studies the writings of social rebels and explores the relationship between their personal narratives and illegitimacy. The case studies which Maclean examines fall into four groups: those which stress alternative family structures and 'female genealogies'; those which pair female illegitimacy and revolution; those which question the deliberate refusal of the name of the father by the legitimate and those which study the revenge of genius on the society which excludes it. Skilfully interweaving feminist theory, French literary criticism, social and cultural history, deconstruction and psychoanalytic theory, Maclean traces the place of these personal narratives of illegitimacy in history and their use in theory, from Elizabeth I to Freud, Sartre and Derrida. The Name of the Mother will be of vital interest and importance to any student of critical theory, feminist philosophy, French or cultural studies |
| Analysis |
French literature |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 244-258) and index |
| Subject |
Autobiography -- Women authors.
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Feminism and literature.
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Illegitimacy in literature.
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Literature and society.
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Literature -- Philosophy.
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Mothers in literature.
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| LC no. |
93034974 |
| ISBN |
0415106869 |
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