Research Catalog

Melusine the serpent goddess in A.S. Byatt's Possession and in mythology

Title: Melusine the serpent goddess in A.S. Byatt's Possession and in mythology / Gillian M.E. Alban.
Author: Alban, Gillian, M. E.
Publication: Lanham : Lexington Books, ©2003.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	PR6052.Y2 P6315 2003	Off-site

Details

Description

xiii, 308 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"In this work, Gillian M. E. Alban provides both a scholastically rigorous and highly poetic examination of the snake-woman image, the Fairy Melusine, in modern and ancient texts. Beginning with the plot and poetic language of A. S. Byatt's novel Possession, Alban tracks Melusine into medieval legend and farther back to her antecedents in ancient myth. The book describes Melusine's love story and illuminates her many similarities to goddesses such as Lamia, Ishtar, Isis, and Asherah. Alban stresses how, as mother, creator, and leader, the figure of Melusine was ultimately vilified and converted into the demon of patriarchal belief systems, as seen in the examples of Lilith, Medusa, Scylla, and the serpent in the Garden. The author becomes the goddess's rescuer as she seeks to reconstruct ancient tales about Melusine, unsullied by patriarchal revisionism. A forceful exploration of literature, history, and myth, this study seeks to destroy limiting assumptions about the female sex. Alban's work restores the dignity of an ancient and once-revered mythological figure and makes an important statement about the power and creativity of women."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. [289]-295) and index.

Contents

Foreword / Thelma Shinn Richard -- Melusine and the Snake Goddess -- Into the Garden, Melusine! The Tale in Byatt's Possession -- The Aquatic Great Goddess -- The Ophidian Goddess in Gylanic Times -- Love and the Holy Marriage -- The Meeting and Marriage of Melusine and Raimondin -- Keats' Lamia in the Cevennes -- Sexual Love in the Ancient Holy Marriage -- The Goddess as Wife or Mother of God -- Mother and Creation -- The Creative Snake Goddess -- From Creatrix to Monster -- Mere Lucine, Echidna: Mother of Monsters -- Serpent Goddess Atargatis and Queen Semiramis -- The Curse and Death -- The Prohibition of Melusine Resulting from Her Curse -- Lilith, Medusa, and Scylla: Rapacious Females -- Snake under the Tree in Paradise: Asherah Suppressed.

ISBN

0739104713
9780739104712

LCCN

2002043356
9780739104712

OCLC

ocm51274781
51274781
SCSB-14634186

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library