Fatal Women of RomanticismCambridge University Press, 2002 M12 12 - 328 pages Incarnations of fatal women, or femmes fatales, recur throughout the works of women writers in the Romantic period. Adriana Craciun demonstrates how portrayals of femmes fatales or fatal women played an important role in the development of Romantic women's poetic identities and informed their exploration of issues surrounding the body, sexuality and politics. Craciun covers a wide range of writers and genres from the 1790s through the 1830s. She discusses the work of well-known figures including Mary Wollstonecraft, as well as lesser-known writers like Anne Bannerman. By examining women writers' fatal women in historical, political and medical contexts, Craciun uncovers a far-ranging debate on sexual difference. She also engages with current research on the history of the body and sexuality, providing an important historical precedent for modern feminist theory's ongoing dilemma regarding the status of 'woman' as a sex. |
Contents
1 | |
Mary Lamb femme fatale | 21 |
Mary Wollstonecraft Mary Robinson and womens strength | 47 |
Mary Robinson and Marie Antoinette | 76 |
Charlotte Dacres Gothic bodies | 110 |
Anne Bannermans femmes fatales | 156 |
Letitia Landons philosophy of decomposition | 195 |
Notes | 251 |
Bibliography | 291 |
Index | 319 |
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Common terms and phrases
ancien régime Anderson Appollonia argues Aristocracy of Genius ballads Bannerman's Bannerman's poem beauty bourgeois British Byron celebrates century Charlotte Dacre Coleridge Coleridge's Corday corporeal critics critique cultural Dacre's dangerous Dark Ladie death decay Della Cruscan demon lover desire destruction discourse domestic embodiment Enchantress Ethel Churchill example fatal women female body feminine feminism feminist femme fatale figure Foucault French Revolution gender gender-complementary Gothic heroine Ibid ideal ideology imagination influence Lamb's Landon's Letitia letter literary male Marie Antoinette Mary Lamb Mary Robinson Mary Wollstonecraft masculine McGann Melusine Melusine's mermaid misogynist modern Monody moral mother murder natural novel Nymphomania orig Passions physical pleasure poetess poetic poetry political Prophetess published Queen radical resistance Review Rights of Woman Romantic period Romantic-period Romanticism Sade Satan seduction sexual difference social soul strength sublime supernatural tion tradition truth veil Victoria violence Wollstonecraft women poets women writers Wordsworth's writing Zofloya