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Title: The attack of the compilator: Chaucer's challenge of auctores and antifeminism in The Legend of Good Women.
Creator: Babrove, Franklin., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Geoffrey Chaucer's narrator persona in The Legend of Good Women (LGW) goes through a transformation, starting off in the Prologue to the LGW as a naèive compilator who is subordinate to his literary sources, or auctores, and eventually becoming an auctor himself by the end of the Legends. To gain an authoritative voice, Chaucer's narrator criticizes auctoritee as it pertains to the antifeminist tradition and its misrepresentation of women as inherently wicked, in the process using certain...
Show moreGeoffrey Chaucer's narrator persona in The Legend of Good Women (LGW) goes through a transformation, starting off in the Prologue to the LGW as a naèive compilator who is subordinate to his literary sources, or auctores, and eventually becoming an auctor himself by the end of the Legends. To gain an authoritative voice, Chaucer's narrator criticizes auctoritee as it pertains to the antifeminist tradition and its misrepresentation of women as inherently wicked, in the process using certain rhetorical devices and other literary strategies to assert control over his sources for the Legends, as well as over the text as a whole. Of particular importance in this process is the narrator's line "[a]nd trusteth, as in love, no man but me" (2561) occurring near the end of "The Legend of Phyllis," the penultimate legend in the LGW. At this point in the text, the narrator persona steps completely outside of the role of compilator and presents himself as auctor who can be trusted by his female readers to tell their stories fairly and sympathetically, in ways that subtly confront antifeminist texts and perceptions.
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Date Issued: 2013
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/3362330
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, Literature, Medieval, Criticism and interpretation, Feminism in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Edith Wharton: self-actualization through characterization in The Age of Innocence.
Creator: Feuerberg, Betty., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Edith Wharton uses characterization in the primary three characters in The Age of Innocence to explore the aspects of her life. Early adulthood is represented by May Welland Archer, who was born into New York 400, where society suppressed an individual's emotions, aspirations, and freedoms. The intermediate phase of her life is depicted in Newland Archer, who tests the confining limits of the society to which he belongs and strives to understand the role of emotions in achieving personal...
Show moreEdith Wharton uses characterization in the primary three characters in The Age of Innocence to explore the aspects of her life. Early adulthood is represented by May Welland Archer, who was born into New York 400, where society suppressed an individual's emotions, aspirations, and freedoms. The intermediate phase of her life is depicted in Newland Archer, who tests the confining limits of the society to which he belongs and strives to understand the role of emotions in achieving personal satisfaction. Wharton rejected and craved the ties of the New York 400 in the final phase of her life as portrayed in Ellen Olenska who left the 400, lived in Europe, and returned to New York. By developing these characters, Wharton attempts to retrospectively reconcile the transformations she experienced. Indeed, it will be clear that Wharton's work serves as a personal assessment of her self-actualization.
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Date Issued: 2013
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/3360784
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, Women and literature, History, Feminism in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Ellen Glasgow: Feminism through characterization.
Creator: Catapano, Tanya R., Florida Atlantic University, Coyle, William
Abstract/Description: Ellen Glasgow's feminism is revealed in her fiction, especially through her characterization of women. In four representative novels, Glasgow's female characters underscore the problems of women--from the womanly woman of the Victorian era to the new woman of the twentieth century. In Virginia, Virginia Pendleton is the product of an education that teaches her to be a dutiful wife and mother yet neglects her personal growth. In The Sheltered Life, Eva Birdsong is a victim of the myth of...
Show moreEllen Glasgow's feminism is revealed in her fiction, especially through her characterization of women. In four representative novels, Glasgow's female characters underscore the problems of women--from the womanly woman of the Victorian era to the new woman of the twentieth century. In Virginia, Virginia Pendleton is the product of an education that teaches her to be a dutiful wife and mother yet neglects her personal growth. In The Sheltered Life, Eva Birdsong is a victim of the myth of Southern Womanhood and its unrealistic expectations. Glasgow also attempts to show that character is fate, and women can turn to their inner resources to solve their problems. Thus Dorinda Oakley of Barren Ground enters the man's world of farming, and Ada Fincastle of Vein of Iron relies on her inherited fortitude to triumph over personal disappointments and the forces of social change. In these novels, Glasgow exposes the conservative educational, religious, and social influences that impinge on the development of women as total human beings. Ellen Glasgow's contribution to the feminist movement lies in her commitment to what she called women's "liberation of personality."
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Date Issued: 1989
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/14527
Subject Headings: Glasgow, Ellen Anderson Gholson,--1873-1945--Criticism and interpretation, Feminism and literature, Women in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Feminism and revolution: Ideological coalescence in Gioconda Belli's "La mujer habitada".
Creator: Tepper, Sandra., Florida Atlantic University, Erro-Peralta, Nora
Abstract/Description: The feminist ideology Gioconda Belli develops in La mujer habitada is a critique of the dictatorial and/or patriarchal restrictions which oppress her women characters. In the novel, the protagonists, Itza a mythological woman warrior from the time of the Spanish Conquest, and Lavinia, a Sandinista guerillera during the Somoza regime, are revolutionary characters who transgress the limitations inherent in the traditional societal roles of "passive" females. Itza challenges the pre-Colonial and...
Show moreThe feminist ideology Gioconda Belli develops in La mujer habitada is a critique of the dictatorial and/or patriarchal restrictions which oppress her women characters. In the novel, the protagonists, Itza a mythological woman warrior from the time of the Spanish Conquest, and Lavinia, a Sandinista guerillera during the Somoza regime, are revolutionary characters who transgress the limitations inherent in the traditional societal roles of "passive" females. Itza challenges the pre-Colonial and Colonial patriarchal ideology, while Lavinia seeks to undermine at once the official state discourse of the Somoza dictatorship, and the phallocentric revolutionary ideology of some of the Sandinistas. In the process, these female characters constitute themselves as subjects and challenge the male-centered canon that so often objectifies women and devalues their creativity.
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Date Issued: 1996
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15265
Subject Headings: Belli, Gioconda,--1948---Criticism and interpretation, Belli, Gioconda,--1948---Mujer habitada, Central American literature, Women in literature, Feminism and literature--Central America--History and criticism, Revolutionary literature, Latin American--History and criticism, Literature and revolutions, Feminist literary criticism, Politics and literature--Central America
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Gender, Myth, and Warfare: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Women Warriors.
Creator: Boomer, Anne-Louise Lyttle, Brown, Susan Love, Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Anthropology
Abstract/Description: A combination of cross-cultural and symbolic methodologies suggests that women warriors occur in societies where there is both an emphasis on the sacred feminine that allows women greater access to positions of power and authority (as per Peggy Sanday) and where marital residency rules permit female fighters (following David B. Adams´s theory on women warriors). While neither theory can stand alone in explaining the existence of women warriors, when combined both theories give a solid picture...
Show moreA combination of cross-cultural and symbolic methodologies suggests that women warriors occur in societies where there is both an emphasis on the sacred feminine that allows women greater access to positions of power and authority (as per Peggy Sanday) and where marital residency rules permit female fighters (following David B. Adams´s theory on women warriors). While neither theory can stand alone in explaining the existence of women warriors, when combined both theories give a solid picture of societies that allow for female combatants. In this paper I propose that by combining Sanday’s work on female power and Adams’s work on women warriors we can come to a better understanding about just what makes the cultures that allow for women’s participation in warfare unique, and perhaps what characteristics must be in place in order for a culture to have women warriors.
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Date Issued: 2016
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004571, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004571
Subject Headings: Sanday, Peggy Reeves.--Female power and male dominance--Criticism and interpretation., Adams, David B.--Why there are so few women warriors--Criticism and interpretation., Feminism in literature., Sex (Psychology)--Cross-cultural studies., Symbolism (Psychology)--Cross-cultural studies.
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: A good woman is hard to find: discovering the voice of the woman satirist in Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood.
Creator: Paxton, Virginia A., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: While Flannery O'Connor's characters and narrative landscape may share a history with those of other works often labeled "Southern gothic," her heavily judicious narrative voice utilizes the depravity of the South struggling to find its identity as a means to explore her vision of God's mercy and distinguishes her work as satirical criticism. This thesis analyzes her construction of a distinctive satirical narrative voice for Wise Blood, particularly as it deviates from how she initially...
Show moreWhile Flannery O'Connor's characters and narrative landscape may share a history with those of other works often labeled "Southern gothic," her heavily judicious narrative voice utilizes the depravity of the South struggling to find its identity as a means to explore her vision of God's mercy and distinguishes her work as satirical criticism. This thesis analyzes her construction of a distinctive satirical narrative voice for Wise Blood, particularly as it deviates from how she initially wrote the first chapters as presented in earlier short stories like "The Train" and "The Peeler." Here, the ways in which O'Connor revises her diction and syntax to create a satirical tone will be examined closely. For the purposes of this paper, satire is defined as a literary work aimed at utilizing irony, hyperbole, or sarcasm to reveal, critique, and correct some moral, ethical, or social phenomenon or situation that the author finds reprehensible.
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Date Issued: 2009
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/221951
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, Feminism and literature, Didactic fiction, American, Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.)
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Housing identity: re-constructing feminine spaces through memory in Virginia Woolf's The Years and Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca.
Creator: Derisi, Stephanie, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: This thesis represents a study of The Years by Virginia Woolf and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Both novels attempt to redefine the role of women in patriarchal society during the 1930s. The domestic role women had to fill within a masculine household constrained their ability to form an independent "self," apart from fathers and husbands. I argue that these novels articulate the possibility for women to access an independent self by examining the meaning behind domestic objects in and of the...
Show moreThis thesis represents a study of The Years by Virginia Woolf and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Both novels attempt to redefine the role of women in patriarchal society during the 1930s. The domestic role women had to fill within a masculine household constrained their ability to form an independent "self," apart from fathers and husbands. I argue that these novels articulate the possibility for women to access an independent self by examining the meaning behind domestic objects in and of the house. Lucy Irigaray asserts that women were, and still are, associated with being valued as a desirable "commodity". Since women have no choice but to work within the symbolic order and are already labeled as "object," women writers have manipulated the system by examining the subject/object dichotomy. The relationship women have with inanimate, and particularly domestic, objects shows how time (the past and the future) manipulates freedom in the present moment. Woolf's reflection on how "moments of being" function as gateways to a heightened sense of awareness is prevalent in her last published novel, The Years. I invoke Friedrich Nietzsche to consider notions of how an antiquated past hinders identity in du Maurier's Rebecca. In the literary texts of Woolf and du Maurier, women have a unique relationship with material objects in relationship to subjectivity. By examining the spatial constructs of the home, women are able to construct themselves as free "subjects" in a male dominated world.
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Date Issued: 2012
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3342046
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Feminism in literature, Identity (Psychology) in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: I'll be your mirror: reflections on doubling and the processing of aggression in the post(modern) fairy tales of Hesse & Winterson.
Creator: Rigdon, Brittany K., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Traditional fairy tales represent some of the oldest and most archetypal forms of literature. However, as humanity rapidly evolves, the genre and content of traditional fairy tales still operates as a prevalent socializing agent that fails to promote pluralism. Instead, traditional fairy tales illustrate and uphold limited gender roles and expectations. This paper examines Hermann Hesse's role as a pioneer in a now burgeoning movement of fairy tale revisions that blur boundaries between...
Show moreTraditional fairy tales represent some of the oldest and most archetypal forms of literature. However, as humanity rapidly evolves, the genre and content of traditional fairy tales still operates as a prevalent socializing agent that fails to promote pluralism. Instead, traditional fairy tales illustrate and uphold limited gender roles and expectations. This paper examines Hermann Hesse's role as a pioneer in a now burgeoning movement of fairy tale revisions that blur boundaries between fantasy and reality by introducing specific, everyday locations, countries, and individuals coupled with a copious use of the double. This formula draws the reader into the tale via the uncanny and prompts a reevaluation of especially violent historical moments and issues that affect all within a society. Hesse's work within this new tradition of revisions of beloved fairy tales, as well as his creation of literary fairy tales, has significantly influenced the work of key postmodern feminist fairy tale revisionists like Jeanette Winterson.
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Date Issued: 2009
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/369202
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Feminism in literature, Postmodernism (Literature), Fairy tales, Criticism and interpretation
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: La Fornarina.
Creator: Brosz, Rosely Tavares, Bucak, Ayse Papatya, Florida Atlantic University
Abstract/Description: Margherita Luti, the daughter of a hard-working but nai've baker, Francesco Luti, discovers her potential in La Panetteria da Francesco as she hones her craft of breadmaking, while also adding cakes and other dolces to her repertoire. Her simple life takes great turns as Margherita learns about new passions of hers: dolce, art, and love. After colliding with Raphael Sanzio, one of Rome's most prominent painters, she disguises herself as one of the elite and begins to live a life unknown and...
Show moreMargherita Luti, the daughter of a hard-working but nai've baker, Francesco Luti, discovers her potential in La Panetteria da Francesco as she hones her craft of breadmaking, while also adding cakes and other dolces to her repertoire. Her simple life takes great turns as Margherita learns about new passions of hers: dolce, art, and love. After colliding with Raphael Sanzio, one of Rome's most prominent painters, she disguises herself as one of the elite and begins to live a life unknown and drastically contrary to the lifestyle she had always had. Set in the backdrop of Renaissance Italy, Rita soon opens the gates to her own inhibited desires as wells as confronting the expectations of her class and her role as a woman. Margherita and Raphael will have to decide whether or not their love for each other is greater than the social challenges they must face.
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Date Issued: 2007
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000903
Subject Headings: Modernism (Literature), Man-woman relationships--Fiction., Feminism in literature--Fiction.
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Libertinage et feminisme dans les lettres du colonel talbert de francoise-albine puzin de la martiniere benoist.
Creator: Montonen, Jane M., Munson, Marcella L., Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Languages, Lingustics and Comparative Literature
Abstract/Description: In 1767, Mme Benoist published an epistolary libertine novel entitled Lettres du Colonel Talbert. Although she has received little critical attention to date, she was a prolific author who appeared with great regularity at minor literary salons. Her presence at these salons is well-established in personal memoirs and correspondences, and actively remarked upon by other authors—men and women—of the period, including Mme Roland and Choderlos de Laclos. Mme Benoist’s preferred genre was the...
Show moreIn 1767, Mme Benoist published an epistolary libertine novel entitled Lettres du Colonel Talbert. Although she has received little critical attention to date, she was a prolific author who appeared with great regularity at minor literary salons. Her presence at these salons is well-established in personal memoirs and correspondences, and actively remarked upon by other authors—men and women—of the period, including Mme Roland and Choderlos de Laclos. Mme Benoist’s preferred genre was the novel with its explicit blend of high and low literary cultures, its melding of the philosophical and the sentimental, its pursuit of formal innovation, and its deliberate marketing in multiple formats and for multiple audiences, including publication through the mainstream book market, and serial publication in revues and journals with a large female readership, such as the Journal des Dames. This study focuses on Lettres du Colonel Talbert (1767) as both a paradigmatic and privileged text inside Mme Benoist’s larger corpus, and one which explicitly engages many of the most pressing moral and philosophical debates of the period, including the legal status of women. To do so, Mme Benoist appropriates the libertine novel as specific novelistic subtype. In Les Lettres du Colonel Talbert, Mme Benoist parodies the libertine novel and in doing so, converts the libertine textual economy to one in which well-established narrative codes of femininity and masculinity are inverted. Although her depiction of the heroine, Hélène—an exceptional and courageous young woman who resists the predatory advances of a man through sheer strength of moral character—is not in itself unusual, Mme Benoist’s choice to frame her heroine’s moral struggle in a narrative epistolary exchange between two diametrically opposed male “types” in enlightenment thought—the libertine and the honnête homme— Mme Benoist effectively subverts masculine textual dynamics at the level of plot and character. More importantly, she also subverts the libertine novel’s traditional identification with masculine authorship.
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Date Issued: 2014
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004141, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004141
Subject Headings: Benoist, Françoise Albine Puzin de La Martinière -- 1724-1809 -- Lettres du Colonel Talbert -- Criticism and interpretation, Feminism in literature, Libertinism in literature, Revolutionary literature, French -- 18th century -- Criticism and interpretation, Women and literature -- France -- 18th century
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The new woman before she was new: Olive Schreiner's "The Story of an African Farm" and Fanny Fern's "Ruth Hall".
Creator: Richardson, Dana Jo., Florida Atlantic University, Buckton, Oliver
Abstract/Description: Despite the designation of Olive Schreiner's Lyndall in The Story of an African Farm as the first "New Woman" in literature, the nineteenth-century New Woman, with her high ideals and belief in an androgynous compromise of sex roles, is exemplified by Fanny Fern's heroine Ruth in the novel Ruth Hall. While Lyndall speaks of social injustice done to women, the limitations of her provincial setting preclude her protests from achieving the level of social activism; however, Ruth's protests, in...
Show moreDespite the designation of Olive Schreiner's Lyndall in The Story of an African Farm as the first "New Woman" in literature, the nineteenth-century New Woman, with her high ideals and belief in an androgynous compromise of sex roles, is exemplified by Fanny Fern's heroine Ruth in the novel Ruth Hall. While Lyndall speaks of social injustice done to women, the limitations of her provincial setting preclude her protests from achieving the level of social activism; however, Ruth's protests, in the form of newspaper articles, do reach the level of social activism. Schreiner's androgynous ideal becomes lost in a role reversal rather than role dissolution, while Fern's Ruth achieves the metamorphosis from voiceless stereotype to empowered woman, breaking established gender conventions. Ruth, revealed to the literary world before Schreiner's Lyndall, is not only an earlier New Woman but also a stronger and more successful New Woman.
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Date Issued: 2000
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15771
Subject Headings: Feminism in literature, Schreiner, Olive,--1855-1920--Criticism and interpretation, Schreiner, Olive,--1855-1920--Story of an African farm, Fern, Fanny,--1811-1872--Criticism and interpretation, Fern, Fanny,--1811-1872--Ruth Hall
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Olive Schreiner on "times and seasons".
Creator: Carr, Mellissa M., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Olive Schreine'rs novel, The Story of an African Farm, and nonfiction work, Woman and Labor, have compelled critics to apply the term New Woman to her main character, Lyndall, who speaks out for change against the established gender roles. The thesis proposes that by placing Lyndall in a colonial context, Schreiner creates a plot where place and language embody the possibilities for change. Considering that Schreiner's life consisted of a life in the colonies, first as a governess, later as a...
Show moreOlive Schreine'rs novel, The Story of an African Farm, and nonfiction work, Woman and Labor, have compelled critics to apply the term New Woman to her main character, Lyndall, who speaks out for change against the established gender roles. The thesis proposes that by placing Lyndall in a colonial context, Schreiner creates a plot where place and language embody the possibilities for change. Considering that Schreiner's life consisted of a life in the colonies, first as a governess, later as a wife, one sees Schreiner's personal interest in change. Analyzing Schreiner's style of representing Lyndall's relationship with nature and other characters, one discovers the way Schreiner balances a feminist (and hence radical) shadow discourse of masochism with the discourses of nature and evolution. Schreiner registers an interest in change in her language by turning the linguistic-mental neighborhoods of Jane Austen inside out in favor of a more extrinsic language, the dialect of real South African neighborhoods. In her personal details, furthermore, Schreiner brings to life the language and landscape of her beloved country, creating the conceptual groundwork for political change. Read in this way, Olive Schreiner's work can be seen as creating space for more literature about social change like the award-winning work of the South African writer, Nadine Gordimer.
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Date Issued: 2011
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3332188
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Feminism in literature, Imperialism in literature, Political fiction, English, History and criticism, In literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Proto-Feminism, gender, and Genre: Moderata Fonte and Maria de Zayas Sotomayor's Silent Alliance.
Creator: Sardu Castangia, Luisanna, Ruthenberg, Myriam Swennen, Florida Atlantic University
Abstract/Description: In their comparative study of Medieval and Renaissance European women writers, Pamela Benson and Victoria Kirkham, exploring the relationship between Italian women writers and their English and French counterparts, assumed a "dynamic interaction" existed. Despite the absence of Spanish women writers in that collection when observing the themes and writing strategies ofModerata Fonte and Maria de Zayas Sotomayor, one can observe a number of similarities that points toward a dynamic interaction...
Show moreIn their comparative study of Medieval and Renaissance European women writers, Pamela Benson and Victoria Kirkham, exploring the relationship between Italian women writers and their English and French counterparts, assumed a "dynamic interaction" existed. Despite the absence of Spanish women writers in that collection when observing the themes and writing strategies ofModerata Fonte and Maria de Zayas Sotomayor, one can observe a number of similarities that points toward a dynamic interaction and moreover, to the transmission of proto-feminist ideas along "memory chains".
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Date Issued: 2008
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000960
Subject Headings: Fonte, Moderata,--1555-1592--Criticism and interpretation, Zayas y Sotomayor, María de,--1590-1650--Criticism and interpretation, Spanish literature--Classical period, 1500-1700--Criticism and interpretation, Feminism in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: A queer world: feminine subversions of chivalric homosocial normativity.
Creator: Pitts, Jessica., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: If queer is an applicable label for that which aims to subvert or counteract normativity, then Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Wife of Bath's tale, and her Prologue are each, in their own ways, queer texts. I examine the ways in which the feminine presences of Morgan le Fay and the Loathly Lady influence and challenge the heteronormative, homosocial space of Arthur and his knights. The two knights in each respective tale journey away from their heteronormative spaces, in which a complex...
Show moreIf queer is an applicable label for that which aims to subvert or counteract normativity, then Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Wife of Bath's tale, and her Prologue are each, in their own ways, queer texts. I examine the ways in which the feminine presences of Morgan le Fay and the Loathly Lady influence and challenge the heteronormative, homosocial space of Arthur and his knights. The two knights in each respective tale journey away from their heteronormative spaces, in which a complex system of homosociality and chivalric patriarchy dominate, to a queer space where each must go against his societal norms and rely on feminine agency and talismans in order for their quests to succeed - and to ensure their survival. It is this very convergence of heteronormative and queer spaces that enables Morgan's defiance of heteronormativity and dominance over those who enter her feminine, non-normative domain.
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Date Issued: 2011
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3318679
Subject Headings: Characters, Wife of Bath, Feminism and literature, Gawain (Legendary character), Man-woman relationships in literature, Human body in literature, Symbolism in literature, Sex in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Revis(it)ing Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness: women, symbolism, and resistance.
Creator: Smith, Kathryn M., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is, admittedly, a text with many racist, imperialist and sexist subtexts. A feminist literary analysis, however, can extract women's empowerment and agency. This thesis takes a closer look at the Mistress (also known as the African woman) and the Intended, two women with vastly different racial and class backgrounds who, in their own ways, demonstrate resistance. This thesis analyzes Mr. Kurtz's often ignored sketch in oils, arguing that the sketch itself...
Show moreJoseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is, admittedly, a text with many racist, imperialist and sexist subtexts. A feminist literary analysis, however, can extract women's empowerment and agency. This thesis takes a closer look at the Mistress (also known as the African woman) and the Intended, two women with vastly different racial and class backgrounds who, in their own ways, demonstrate resistance. This thesis analyzes Mr. Kurtz's often ignored sketch in oils, arguing that the sketch itself demonstrates the colonial mentality of difference and the disruption of that difference. It then explores both the Mistress and the Intended in detail, positing that while the Mistress uses the colonizers' fear of the wilderness and its silence to her advantage, the Intended takes control over her own domestic circumstance. Overall, this author asserts that the Mistress and the Intended, while often dismissed, are noteworthy, important, and influential characters in Heart of Darkness.
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Date Issued: 2009
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/192989
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, Feminism in literature, Racism in literature, Imperialism in literature, Literature and society, Criticism and interpretation
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The Subaltern Female Struggle for Power in Courtly Love France and Medieval Spain.
Creator: Macbeth, Verna Michelle, Gamboa, Yolanda, Florida Atlantic University
Abstract/Description: In medieval France, much of the written literature was dominated by the system of courtly love, in which the married noble woman held the position of authority over her lover or knight. Yet this courtly system was entirely literary and did not change women's subjugated position in feudal society, and even propagated misogynistic ideals. In John Beverly's theory of Subalternity, the struggle for power within different systems is shown as having two main groups, the elite and the subaltern; the...
Show moreIn medieval France, much of the written literature was dominated by the system of courtly love, in which the married noble woman held the position of authority over her lover or knight. Yet this courtly system was entirely literary and did not change women's subjugated position in feudal society, and even propagated misogynistic ideals. In John Beverly's theory of Subalternity, the struggle for power within different systems is shown as having two main groups, the elite and the subaltern; the former having control over the representation of the latter, and therefore control over how the subaltern shapes its selfimage. In medieval, courtly love France, those who manufacture the literary representations of women are male, and those texts that aided in the re-affirming of feudal society; though some women, like Christine de Pizan, resisted those representations. Conversely, in medieval Spain, courtly love does not take hold as a literary phenomenon due to the different cultural and social environment of Spanish noble women.
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Date Issued: 2008
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000936
Subject Headings: Marginality, Social--France--To 1500, Marginality, Social--Spain--To 1500, Feminism and literature--Europe--History--Middle Ages, 500-1500, Women--Europe--History--Middle Ages, 500-1500, Man-woman relationships in literature, Literature, Medieval--Criticism and interpretation
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Theorizing the Goddess in Feminist Mythopoeic Fantasy.
Creator: Taylor, Taryne Jade, Martin, Thomas L., Florida Atlantic University
Abstract/Description: In my thesis, I examine the function and treatment of goddesses in six modern feminist mythopoeic fantasy novels by Y olen, Shinn, and Harris. In these novels, the goddesses and their worshippers serve as the agents of socio-political change within the secondary world, inducing changes that end with the ultimate transformation of oppressive social structures. Acknowledging these goddesses and incorporating them into the fabric of communal life, the protagonists, and ultimately entire...
Show moreIn my thesis, I examine the function and treatment of goddesses in six modern feminist mythopoeic fantasy novels by Y olen, Shinn, and Harris. In these novels, the goddesses and their worshippers serve as the agents of socio-political change within the secondary world, inducing changes that end with the ultimate transformation of oppressive social structures. Acknowledging these goddesses and incorporating them into the fabric of communal life, the protagonists, and ultimately entire societies, are able transcend issues of gender, race, ethnicity, class, and religion, in order to create a peaceful and prosperous society. These novels work through many of the issues troubling modern day feminist theorists and make important contributions to the discourse of feminist spirituality and feminist theory as a whole. Extrapolating both a theory and praxis from the texture of these fantasy narratives, I suggest that these stories offer a way to transcend dichotomous thinking and escape the current stagnation of spirituality based approaches to feminism.
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Date Issued: 2008
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000968
Subject Headings: Myth in literature, Feminism in literature, Fantasy fiction, American--Criticism and interpretation, Spirituality in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Feminism in literature (10)	+ -
Criticism and interpretation (7)	+ -
Feminism and literature (3)	+ -
Symbolism in literature (3)	+ -
Imperialism in literature (2)	+ -

Man-woman relationships in literature (2)	+ -
Women in literature (2)	+ -
Adams, David B.--Why there are so few women warriors--Criticism and interpretation. (1)	+ -
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Benoist, Françoise Albine Puzin de La Martinière -- 1724-1809 -- Lettres du Colonel Talbert -- Criticism and interpretation (1)	+ -
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