Allegories of Writing: The Subject of MetamorphosisAllegories of Writing presents the first full synthesis of allegory theory and literary metamorphosis. It examines the leading themes and the literary transformations of metamorphic narratives. By applying current theories of the text and the subject to metamorphic tales from Homer, Plato, and Apuleius to Keats, Kafka, and Calvino, this book recovers the critical force of metamorphosis in secular Western literature. The author clarifies the cultural history of literary metamorphosis from the perspective of allegory theory. At the core of the study are the connections among Plato's Phaedrus, Apuleius's Golden Ass, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Keats's Lamia. Other primary texts are arranged around this core by their significant participation in the ironic literary deployment of metamorphic devices. |
Contents
Writing as the Daemonic | 1 |
History of Metamorphic Allegory | 23 |
Metamorphic Subjects | 53 |
Transformations of Affect | 56 |
Shame and Disappearance | 63 |
Political Economy | 72 |
Fabulous Monsters | 83 |
The Insect | 84 |
Qfwfq | 102 |
The Gender of Metamorphosis | 113 |
The Apuleian Psyche | 114 |
Circes Metamorphoses | 122 |
The Changeling Boy | 128 |
Lamias First Life | 132 |
The Vehicular Female | 139 |
The Crone | 145 |
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Common terms and phrases
affective agent allegory of writing Apollonius Apuleius Apuleius's Bakhtin bodily body Buendía Calvino's changeling Christian Circe Circe's classical clinamen Coleridge Coleridge's comedy comic cosmos cultural Cupid and Psyche cybernetic daemonic death desire discourse divine epic episode Eros erotic fable fairy female feminine fictions figure García Márquez gender Golden Ass Gregor Hermes Homer human identity incest insect ironic Italo Calvino Jekyll and Hyde Jekyll's Kafka's Keats Keats's Lamia linguistic literal literary literature Lucius Lucius's Lucretius magical Meroë meta metamor metamorphic allegory metamorphosis metaphor Midsummer Night's Dream mitosis monster monstrous moral morphosis myth mythic narrative narrator nature Neoplatonic nymph Oberon Odyssey Ovid Ovid's pagan parody patriarchal penance personification Phaedrus phallic pharmakon philosophical phosis Platonic poem possession proper Proteus Psyche's Qfwfq reading represents rhetorical sexual shame Sharik Sharikov signifier Socrates Socrates's soul spiritual story structure tale textual Thelyphron tion tradition trans transformation translation trope turns University Press Utterson vehicle York