Medusa's Mirrors: Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and the Metamorphosis of the Female SelfUniversity of Delaware Press, 1998 - 236 pages What common ground in the imaginations of these three very different writers produces such paradigms of disempowerment? The author has foregrounded three attempts both to construct and to control the female self; the common ground of the transformative mirror will tell the reader something about the poetic imaginations of the three canonical authors and provide insight into the problems of gender and power and representation in the English Renaissance. |
Contents
| 19 | |
the chiasmus of perception | 45 |
Elizabeth is Britomart is Elizabeth this sex which is not won | 69 |
Cleopatra the tain of the mirror | 117 |
Eve the first reflection | 158 |
the mirrors of Medusa | 188 |
Notes | 196 |
| 224 | |
| 233 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Adam Adam's Aeneas Aeneid allegory Antony and Cleopatra Antony's argue argument Artegall beautiful becomes Belphoebe Brito Britomart Caesar canto chiasmus complex conflation construct creation critics cultural death Dido discourse discussion Donne's dream dynastic elements Elizabeth Enobarbus epic Eve's eyes face Faerie Queene fear female power feminine figure gaze gematria gender gender identity Genesis glass Glauce Glauce's Gorgon Ibid icon identity imaginative interior female Isis Church James John Donne lines Literary look lover masculine medieval Medusa Medusa story Mercilla metamorphosis metaphor Milton mirror vision mother Narcissus narrative narrator Octavius Ovid Ovid's Ovidian paradigm Paradise Lost Perseus play Plutarch poem poet poetic poetry political portrait pronouns Raphael's reader reading reflection Renaissance texts representation represented reversal revision Roman Roy Strong scene secret selfhood sense sexual Shakespeare speaks speech Spenser stanza suggest tain tells Thomas Neely tion tomb tradition University Press woman women