Shelley's Goddess: Maternity, Language, SubjectivityThe subject of Gelpi's new book is the importance of the mother-infant relationship in Percy Bysshe Shelly's poetry and life. However, her book also uses Shelley as a touchstone by which to examine the rich historical and theoretical issues relevant to motherhood in the Romantic period. Gelpi offers a detailed account of the historical rise in attention paid to mothering, the changing cultural attitudes towards the role of the mother, and the resulting effect on the nature of family life. She further discusses the psychoanalytic, Marxist, and developmental approaches to the mother/infant relationship, particularly to the connection each makes between that relationship and the acquisition of language. By combining psychoanalytic, poststructuralist and feminist theory with extensive biographical material on Shelley and information on the position of mothers in England after 1790, Gelpi offers an important reassessment of Shelley's avowed feminism and the failure of his utopian vision. |
From inside the book
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Page ix
... concept . When an " androgynous " pair , Laon and Cythna , is first presented to us , Cythna is curled up beside Laon " like his shadow " ( Laon and Cythna I.lx.534 [ CW I , 274 ] ) , but the Jungian term " anima " would describe her ...
... concept . When an " androgynous " pair , Laon and Cythna , is first presented to us , Cythna is curled up beside Laon " like his shadow " ( Laon and Cythna I.lx.534 [ CW I , 274 ] ) , but the Jungian term " anima " would describe her ...
Page x
... Concepts 144 ) . But the common idealist source of the two theoretical positions ( Nye , " A Woman Clothed " 681 ; Borch - Jacobsen , Lacan 62 ) makes the experiential result the same : a subjectivity haunted by / mirroring Other ( s ) ...
... Concepts 144 ) . But the common idealist source of the two theoretical positions ( Nye , " A Woman Clothed " 681 ; Borch - Jacobsen , Lacan 62 ) makes the experiential result the same : a subjectivity haunted by / mirroring Other ( s ) ...
Page xii
... concepts . By verbalizing the primary experience — recalling " our sensations as children , " in Shelley's phrase ( SPP 411 ) —we can reconceive it , ourselves , and the world . This is the feminist project that most deeply engages me ...
... concepts . By verbalizing the primary experience — recalling " our sensations as children , " in Shelley's phrase ( SPP 411 ) —we can reconceive it , ourselves , and the world . This is the feminist project that most deeply engages me ...
Page 6
... Concepts 205 ) . It is worth noting here , for its significance later , the stress Lacan's statement places on " individual . " Lacan's phrasing places him , despite all the questions his theory raises about the coherence of the divided ...
... Concepts 205 ) . It is worth noting here , for its significance later , the stress Lacan's statement places on " individual . " Lacan's phrasing places him , despite all the questions his theory raises about the coherence of the divided ...
Page 8
... Concepts 106 ) . The point , then , is not so much that the infant sees itself as the mother ; rather , the infant reflects the way in which it " sees itself be seen " ( Silverman , " Fragments of a Fashionable Discourse " 143 ) ...
... Concepts 106 ) . The point , then , is not so much that the infant sees itself as the mother ; rather , the infant reflects the way in which it " sees itself be seen " ( Silverman , " Fragments of a Fashionable Discourse " 143 ) ...
Other editions - View all
Shelley's Goddess: Maternity, Language, Subjectivity Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi Limited preview - 1992 |
Shelley's Goddess: Maternity, Language, Subjectivity Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi No preview available - 1992 |
Common terms and phrases
Aeschylus aesthetic allusion analysis Asia Asia's author's emphasis becomes breasts Bysshe cave child concept consciousness context Countess of Harrington created Delphi Demogorgon describes desire Dionysus discussion dramatic dream Dumuzi Earth echoes effect Elizabeth Shelley erotic experience fantasy father female feminine Field Place function gaze gender gives Greek Harriet Hogg human ideology imagined infant interaction introjection Jupiter Jupiter's Jupiterean Lacan Lacanian Lady's Magazine language letter lines male Mary Mary Godwin Mary Shelley masculine maternal metaphor metonymic mind mirror Mother Goddess nature notes nurse Oceanides Oedipus Panthea passage Pausanias phrase Pilfold possible presence Prome Promethean Prometheus Unbound reading relationship ritual scene semiotic sense serves sexual Shel Shelley's signifier sister social soul speech spirit Stern subjectivity suggests symbolic Tammuz theory theus thou thought Timothy Shelley tion woman women words writes Zeus
Popular passages
Page 247 - Come, let's away to prison. We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage; When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down, And ask of thee forgiveness; so we'll live, // And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too, Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out; And...
Page 25 - I will compose poetry'. The greatest poet even cannot say it; for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within, like the colour of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either of its approach or of its departure.
Page 264 - The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless, Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king Over himself; just, gentle, wise; but man Passionless — no, yet free from guilt or pain, Which were, for his will made or suffered them; Nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves, From chance, and death, and mutability, The clogs of that which else might oversoar The loftiest star of unascended heaven, Pinnacled dim...
Page 179 - And like the vapours when the sun sinks down, Gathering again in drops upon the pines, And tremulous as they, in the deep night My being was condensed...
Page 246 - Henceforth we will not part. There is a cave, All overgrown with trailing odorous plants, Which curtain out the day with leaves and flowers, And paved with veined emerald, and a fountain Leaps in the midst with an awakening sound.
Page 53 - In the motion of the very leaves of spring, in the blue air, there is then found a secret correspondence with our heart. There is eloquence in the tongueless wind, and a melody in the flowing brooks and the rustling of the reeds beside them, which by their inconceivable relation to something within the soul, awaken the spirits to a dance of breathless rapture, and bring tears of mysterious tenderness to the eyes, like the enthusiasm of patriotic success, or the voice of one beloved singing to you...
Page 219 - God: Almighty God. Asia Who made that sense which, when the winds of spring In rarest visitation, or the voice Of one beloved heard in youth alone, Fills the faint eyes with falling tears which dim The radiant looks of unbewailing flowers, And leaves this peopled earth a solitude When it returns no more?
Page 247 - When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down, And ask of thee forgiveness. So we'll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded butterflies; and hear poor rogues Talk of court news, and we'll talk with them too, Who loses, and who wins, who's in, who's out; And take upon's the mystery of things, As if we were God's spies.