Death Comes to the Maiden
Death Comes to the Maiden

Author: Camille Naish

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-05-07

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1136247610

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In 1791, the French femme de lettres Olympe de Gouges wrote that 'as women have the right to take their places on the scaffold, they must also have the right to take their seats in government'. This book explores the issues of female emancipation through the history of female execution, from the burning of Joan of Arc in 1431 to the events of the French revolution. Concentrating on individual victims, the author addresses the sexual attitudes and prejudices encountered by women condemned to death. She examines the horrific treatment of those denounced as witches and reveals the gruesome reality of death by hanging, burning or the guillotine. In an attempt to uncover the historical truth behind such figures as Joan of Arc, Anne Boleyn, Manon Roland and Charlotte Corday, she goes beyond biography to consider their deaths in symbolic terms. She also considers writers such as Genet, Yourcenar and Brecht and their treatment of the tragic, sacrificial and erotic aspects of female execution.

Crimes of Writing
Crimes of Writing

Author: Susan Stewart

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 0195066170

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From the origins of modern copyright in early eighteenth-century culture to the efforts to represent nature and death in postmodern fiction, this pioneering book explores a series of problems regarding the containment of representation. Stewart focuses on specific cases of "crimes of writing"--the forgeries of George Psalmanazar, the production of "fakelore," the "ballad scandals" of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the imposture of Thomas Chatterton, and contemporary legislation regarding graffiti and pornography. In this way, she emphasizes the issues which arise once language is seen as a matter of property and authorship is viewed as a matter of originality. Finally, Stewart demonstrates that crimes of writing are delineated by the law because they specifically undermine the status of the law itself: the crimes illuminate the irreducible fact that law is written and therefore subject to temporality and interpretation.

A Mary Shelley Encyclopedia
A Mary Shelley Encyclopedia

Author: Lucy Morrison

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2003-06-30

Total Pages: 562

ISBN-13: 0313072329

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Frankenstein is one of the most popular classroom texts in high school and college, and Shelley's other works are attracting renewed attention. This reference is a comprehensive guide to her life and career. Included are hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries about her works, friends, relatives, residences, fictional characters, allusions, and more. Mary Shelley has only recently emerged from the shadows of her famous parents, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, and that of her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Today, Frankenstein (1818, 1831) is one of the most popular classroom texts in high school and college, and Mary Shelley's other works are attracting renewed attention. These works reveal much about the Romantic literary period and Shelley's ongoing development as a writer. In addition to her novels, Shelley wrote short stories, poems, and dramas. These texts illustrate the difficulties of a shifting literary marketplace, while her travel writings illuminate her rich personal experiences and keen intellect. This reference is a comprehensive guide to her life and career. Included are hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries about her works, friends, relatives, residences, fictional characters, allusions, and more. Some entries briefly identify and contextualize their topics, while others offer more extensive discussions. Many entries cite sources of further information, and the volume closes with a bibliography. The work is fully cross-referenced and includes a detailed index and an appendix that discusses the sources of Shelley's quotations.