Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the Return of the Author
0
조회
0
다운로드
0
인용
0
참고문헌
키워드
초록
From Wimsatt and Beardsley’s critique of the intentional fallacy and Barthes’s obituary of the author, to the more cautious, historical investigation of Foucault, the critical focus has changed over the years to the point that now the author is no longer considered a meaningful object of literary analysis. However, discussions about the role of the author persist and we continue to have recourse to the notion of authorship. The anti-humanist deauthorization in contemporary literary discourse can be rectified by turning to a renewed conception of authorship, or more precisely to the inescapable autobiographism of literary writing. In this study, I intent to demonstrate that certain literary texts resist anti-humanist deauthorization and rather invite biographical-historical criticism, by examining the recent critical history of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Since the late 70’s, the feminist intervention into a predominantly masculine critical discourse has contributed to historical shifts in decoding the meaning of Frankenstein. Today the novel is generally regarded as a powerful feminist text that articulates Shelley’s (or woman’s) experience of patriarchy, the family, and the trauma of giving birth. Despite their explicit maleness, the literary configurations of central characters (Victor Frankenstein, the Creature, Robert Walton) in the novel have been construed as allegorical signifiers of the author’s own repressed and traumatized psyche. As no author can entirely dissociate authorship from private obsessions, Shelley’s novel serves as a complex sign of a female author’s genuine exigency. The female authorship has become a crucial frame of reference for Shelley criticism, manifesting that authorship is not an ephemeral time-bound institution which succumbs to a pervasive anonymity of discourse.
Abstract
From Wimsatt and Beardsley’s critique of the intentional fallacy and Barthes’s obituary of the author, to the more cautious, historical investigation of Foucault, the critical focus has changed over the years to the point that now the author is no longer considered a meaningful object of literary analysis. However, discussions about the role of the author persist and we continue to have recourse to the notion of authorship. The anti-humanist deauthorization in contemporary literary discourse can be rectified by turning to a renewed conception of authorship, or more precisely to the inescapable autobiographism of literary writing. In this study, I intent to demonstrate that certain literary texts resist anti-humanist deauthorization and rather invite biographical-historical criticism, by examining the recent critical history of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Since the late 70’s, the feminist intervention into a predominantly masculine critical discourse has contributed to historical shifts in decoding the meaning of Frankenstein. Today the novel is generally regarded as a powerful feminist text that articulates Shelley’s (or woman’s) experience of patriarchy, the family, and the trauma of giving birth. Despite their explicit maleness, the literary configurations of central characters (Victor Frankenstein, the Creature, Robert Walton) in the novel have been construed as allegorical signifiers of the author’s own repressed and traumatized psyche. As no author can entirely dissociate authorship from private obsessions, Shelley’s novel serves as a complex sign of a female author’s genuine exigency. The female authorship has become a crucial frame of reference for Shelley criticism, manifesting that authorship is not an ephemeral time-bound institution which succumbs to a pervasive anonymity of discourse.
참고문헌 (18)
- Baldick, Chris., "In Frankenstein’s shadow: Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteenth-Century Writing" (1987), Oxford UP
- Barthes, Roland., "“The Death of the Author.” Image-Music-Text", pp.142~148 (1977), Hill and Wang
- Burke, Sean., "The Death and Return of the Author: Criticism and Subjectivity in Barthes, Foucault, and Derrida" (1998), Edinburgh UP
- Gilbert, Sandra M., "The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination" (1976), Yale UP
- Hirsch, E. D., "Validity in Interpretation" (1967), Yale UP
- My Self.” Frankenstein: A Norton Critical Edition, "“My Monster", pp.1996, Johnson, Barbara
- Knoepflmacher, U. C., "“Thoughts on the Aggression of Daughters.” The Endurance of Frankenstein", pp.88~119 (1979), U of California P
- Lowe-Evans, Mary., "Frankenstein: Mary Shelley’s Wedding Guest" (1993), Twayne
- Mellor, Anne K., "Possessing Nature: The Female in Frankenstein.” Frankenstein: A Norton Critical Edition", pp.274~286 (1996), Norton
- Moers, Ellen., "“Female Gothic; The Monster’s Mother.” Frankenstein: A Norton Critical Edition", pp.214~224 (1996), Norton
- Poovey, Mary., "“‘My Hideous Progeny’: The Lady and the Monster.” Frankenstein: A Norton Critical Edition", pp.251~261 (1996), Norton
- Rubenstein, Marc., "“‘My Accursed Origin’: The Search for the Mother in Frankenstein.”", Studies in Romanticism, 15, pp.165~194 (1976)
- Scott, Peter Dale., "“Vital Artifice: Mary, Pery, and Psychopolitical Integrity of Frankenstein.” The Endurance of Frankenstein", pp.172~202 (1979), U of California P
- Shelley, Mary., "Frankenstein: A Norton Critical Edition" (1996), Norton
- Shelley, Mary, "The Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Ed. Betty T. Bennett. 3 Vols. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1980-1988", ~
- Smith, Johanna M., "“‘Cooped Up’: Feminine Domesticity in Frankenstein.” Frankenstein" (1992), St. Martin’s
- Stam, Robert., "Film Theory: An Introduction" (2000), Blackwell
- Tropp, Martin., "Mary Shelley’s Monster" (1976), Houghton