ARACHNE’S DAUGHTERS: TOWARDS A FEMINIST POETICS OF CREATIVE AUTONOMY Jasmine Richards, Goldsmiths, University of London Ph.D. English and Comparative Literature, October 2013 I declare that the work presented in this thesis is all my own, and that all references have been cited accordingly. ................................................... Jasmine Richards 31 October 2013 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisors, Isobel Hurst and Lucia Boldrini, for their consummate advice, help and support throughout this project. Thanks are also due to: Michael Simpson, Maria Macdonald and Richard Bolley for their kind help and guidance throughout my studies at Goldsmiths, the staff of the Senate House and the Institute of Classical Studies libraries, and to Sharon Curry and Jan Stevens for their stalwart efforts in proof-reading this thesis. I would also like to thank Marina Warner, whose intricate and wide ranging research into the influence of The Arabian Nights on European culture and thought, planted the seeds of my quest for Mary Shelley’s Scheherazade. To my fellow PhD candidates Emma Grundy Haigh and Alice Condé, thank you for the wine, friendship and conversation that we have shared at GLITS over the last three years. To Johanna Franklin, thank you for the same; for always knowing what to say and for untangling me from my thesis from time to time. Special thanks go to my parents Sharon and Trevor Richards and to my grandparents Rose and John Lattimore. To Amber, for keeping me in Reese’s peanut butter cups and randomness. To Luke and Sarina, for never letting me take myself too seriously. Without your love and support this thesis would not have been possible. To Mum, Nan and Jan, who gave me my earliest and most important encounters with female storytellers and weaving women. This thesis is dedicated to you. 3 ABSTRACT Although in patriarchal narratives female characters who challenge the dominant power structures of the society in which they live are often condemned for their dangerous sexuality, intelligence and creativity, classical myth continues to be attractive to women writers. In developing their theories of feminist poetics, scholars such as Nancy K. Miller interpret classical women associated with textile production (Arachne, Ariadne and Penelope) as symbols of the woman as artist. There also exists a tradition of female authors rewriting ancient heroines as artists, weavers, storytellers and figures of female wisdom and prophetic power, whose stories have the power to provoke social change. I examine and adapt theories of authorship, influence and reception to a female writing subject. I apply this framework to three case studies, assessing the extent to which female authors have been successful in using classical myth to create positive representations of women, female creativity, voice and influence: the appropriation of Apuleius’ ‘Cupid and Psyche’ and Ovid’s Metamorphoses in fairytales by French salonnières, which then influence Angela Carter’s rewritings of ‘La Belle et la Bête’ in The Bloody Chamber (1979); Mary Shelley’s reworking of Promethean myth and The Arabian Nights in Frankenstein (1818); and Margaret Atwood’s and Ursula Le Guin’s re-figurations of classical heroines in The Penelopiad (2005) and Lavinia (2008). While these authors present interesting and effective techniques of rewriting, they sometimes reproduce a negative discourse of female creative inadequacy and authorial anxiety that does not reflect historical and contemporary reality. Extending Nancy K. Miller’s theory of ‘Arachnologies’, I have developed a new framework for reading women’s rewriting practices. My feminist poetics of creative autonomy reflects the woman writer’s sophisticated and creative dialogue with the classics and her relationship to the literary cultures and reading communities with which she identifies. 4 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 3 ABSTRACT 4 CONTENTS 5 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 7 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 8 PART I: INTRODUCTION ARACHNE’S DAUGHTERS: TOWARDS A FEMINIST POETICS OF 11 CREATIVE AUTONOMY I. The Origins of Reception Theory 20 II. Reception Theory and The Classics 27 III. Feminist Criticism, The Classics and the Uses of Reception 34 IV. The Case Studies: Three Critical Models towards Understanding the Feminist Poetics of Creative Autonomy 44 PART II: CASE STUDIES 1. THE RESCUE OF ARACHNE RESCUING THE FAIRIES IN ‘LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE’: THE INTERTEXTUAL 52 EVOLUTION OF A FAIRYTALE I. D’Aulnoy’s Classical Fairyscape: Fairy Vraisemblance and the Construction of Oppositional Space 57 II. Rewriting d’Aulnoy’s Fairies in Villeneuve’s and Beaumont’s ‘La Belle et la Bête’ Burying the Fairies: Villeneuve’s Fairytale Ending 81 Beaumont’s Dream Fairy and the Usable Past 85 III. The Sadeian Fairy: Angela Carter’s Moral Disorder 89 5 2. ARACHNE’S CHALLENGE THE FEMALE PROMETHEUS: THE ARABIAN NIGHTS AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF CLASSICAL MYTH IN FRANKENSTEIN I. ‘A series of supernatural terrors’: Mary Shelley’s Anxieties 107 of Female Authorship ‘I should prove myself worthy’: Mary Shelley’s Classical Education 111 ‘An active mind and a warm heart’: Mary Shelley’s Early Education and The Arabian Nights 117 The Influence of The Arabian Nights on the Poetry of Byron and Percy Shelley 120 Tales of Earth and Fire: The Promethean Politics of Revolution in Frankenstein 124 II. Telling Tales, Stealing Fire: Frankenstein’s Arabesque Narrative Structure as Female Promethean Web Scheherazade’s Web 128 ‘Listen to my history’: Victor Frankenstein’s Subversion of Scheherazadic Storytelling and ‘The Fourth Voyage of Sindbad’ 143 3. REREADING ARACHNE DIALOGUES WITH THE CLASSICS: MARGARET ATWOOD’S 166 THE PENELOPIAD AND URSULA LE GUIN’S LAVINIA I. Rereading Penelope: Penelope’s Web 169 II. Rereading Lavinia: Lavinia’s Blush 203 PART III: CONCLUSION 230 Arachne’s Web: A Feminist Poetics of Creative Autonomy 237 BIBLIOGRAPHY 242 6 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Fig. a) The Arabian Nights Narrative Structure: ‘The Story of the Three Calenders, Sons of Kings; and of the Five Ladies of Bagdad’ 164 Fig. b) The Narrative Structure of Frankenstein 165 7 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Aen. Virgil, Aeneid, 2 vols. tr. by H.R Fairclough (Cambridge Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1999-2000) ANE The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, ed. by Robert L. Mack (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) AWTC Nancy K.Miller, ‘The Woman, The Text and The Critic’ in The Poetics of Gender, ed. by Nancy K. Miller (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986) 270-95 BBB Jeanne- Marie Leprince de Beaumont, ‘La Belle et la Bête’ in Le Magasin des Enfants ou Dialogues entre une sage Gouvernante & plusieurs de ses élèves de la première distinction (Paris: Esslinger, 1756) 66-86 CLM Hélène Cixous, ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’ tr. by Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen, Signs, 1.4 (1976) 875-93 CB Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy, ‘La Chatte blanche’ in Contes, Tome II (Berlin: Tredition Classics, 2012) 1-31 CML Angela Carter, ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’ in The Bloody Chamber (London: Vintage, 2006) 43-55 F Mary Shelley, Frankenstein [1818] (New York and London: Norton, 1996) FLB ‘The Story of the Three Calenders, Sons of Kings and of the Five Ladies of Bagdad’ in The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, ed. by Robert L. Mack (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) 66-138 FVS ‘The Fourth Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor’ in The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, ed. by Robert L. Mack (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) 157-64 GA Apuleius, Apvlei Metamorphoseon Libri XI, (The Golden Ass) ed. by Maaike Zimmerman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) L Ursula Le Guin, Lavinia (London: Orion, 2010) LHC Hans Robert Jauss, ‘Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory’ in Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, tr. by Timothy Bahti (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982) 3-45 LM Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy, ‘Le Mouton’ in Contes, Tome I (Berlin: Tredition Classics, 2012) 152-65 8 LWM Vanda Zajko and Miriam Leonard, Laughing with Medusa: Classical Myth and Feminist Thought, ed. by Vanda Zajko and Miriam Leonard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) Met. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 2 vols. tr. by F.R. Miller (Cambridge Mass and London: Harvard University Press, 1999) MWA Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984) NWD Margaret Atwood, Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing (London: Virago, 2008) Od. Homer, The Odyssey, tr. by Robert Fagles (London: Penguin, 1997) OB Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy, ‘L’Oiseau bleu’ in Contes, Tome I (Berlin: Tredition Classics, 2012) 12-40 PF18 ‘Preface’ to the 1818 edition, in Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (New York and London: Norton, 1996) 5-6 PF31 ‘Mary Shelley: Introduction to Frankenstein, Third Edition (1831)’ in Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (New York and London: Norton, 1996) 169-73 R tr. Apuleius, The Golden Ass, Or a Book of Changes, tr. by Joel C. Relihan (London: Hackett, 2007) SW Angela Carter, The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History (London: Virago, 2000) TB Angela Carter, ‘The Tiger’s Bride’ in The Bloody Chamber (London: Vintage, 2006) 56-75 TP Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2006) TWP Joyce Zonana, ‘“They Will Prove the Truth of My Tale”: Safie's Letters as the Feminist Core of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein’ Journal of Narrative Technique 21:2 (1991)170-84 VBB Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, ‘La Belle et la Bête’ in Le Cabinet De Fées Ou Collection Choisie Des Contes Des Fées, Et Autres Contes Merveilleux, vol. 26 (Paris and Geneva : Barde Manget & Co, 1786) 35-238 Z tr. Jack Zipes, ed. and tr., Beauties, Beasts and Enchantment : Classic French Fairy Tales (New York: Meridian, 1991) 9 Mlle de Lespinasse : Imaginez une araignée au centre de sa toile. Ébranlez un fil, et vous verrez l'animal alerte accourir. Eh bien ! si les fils que l'insecte tire de ses intestins, et y rappelle quand il lui plaît, faisaient partie sensible de lui-même ? 1 1 Denis Diderot, Le Rêve de D’Alembert in Diderot: Selected Philosophical Writings, ed.