The Name of the Mother: Writing Illegitimacy

Description

In this original and highly accomplished study, first published in 1994, Marie Maclean studies the writings of social rebels and explores the relationship between their personal narratives and illegitimacy. The case studies which Maclean examines fall into four groups those which stress alternative family structures and ‘female genealogies’; those which pair female illegitimacy and revolution; those which question the deliberate refusal of the name of the father by the legitimate; those which study the revenge of genius on the society which excludes it. Skilfully interweaving feminist theory, French literary criticism, social and cultural history, deconstruction and psychoanalytic theory, Maclean traces the place of these personal narratives of illegitimacy in history and their use in theory, from Elizabeth I to Freud, Sartre and Derrida. The Name of the Mother will be of vital interest and importance to any student of critical theory, feminist philosophy, French or cultural studies. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Original Title Page Original Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents Preface 1 Performances of Exclusion 2 Myth and Psychoanalysis: Legitimate and Illegitimate The Traditional Mythology of the Exception The Freudian Attempt to Universalise the Particular The Private Uses of Mythology 3 Mythical Histories, Historical Myths 4 A Female Genealogy: The En-Gendering of George Sand 5 Opposition and Revolution: Olympe de Gouges and the Rights of the Dispossessed 6 The Male/Female Messiah: Flora Tristan 7 My Mother the Revolution: Louise Michel 8 Symbolic Delegitimation Stendhal and the Mother’s Line Nerval and the Maternal Space Three Baudelairean Narratives Sartre the ‘Faux-Bâtard’ 9 ‘Better to Reign in Hell…’ Giving Birth to My Grandmother: Leduc Genet: The Flowering of the Name 10 Delegitimation by Proxy Freud Sartre Derrida 11 Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index