Monsters in the Italian Literary ImaginationKeala Jane Jewell Wayne State University Press, 2001 - 325 pages A culture defines monsters against what is essentially thought of as human. Creatures such as the harpy, the siren, the witch, and the half-human all threaten to destroy our sense of power and intelligence and usurp our human consciousness. In this way, monster myths actually work to define a culture's definition of what is human. In Monsters in the Italian Literary Imagination, a broad range of scholars examine the monster in Italian culture and its evolution from the medieval period to the twentieth century. Editor Keala Jewell explores how Italian culture juxtaposes the powers of the monster against the human. The essays in this volume engage a wide variety of philological, feminist, and psychoanalytical approaches and examine monstrous figures from the medieval to postmodern periods. They each share a critical interest in how monsters reflect a culture's dominant ideologies. |
Contents
Acknowledgments | 7 |
Modern Horrors | 16 |
Myths of Monstrosity in | 27 |
Witches Gender | 89 |
Monsters and Conception | 109 |
The Monstrous Nurse | 137 |
Dantes Divine Comedy | 179 |
The Monster as Discourse | 265 |
Monstrous Knowledge | 297 |
Contributors | 311 |
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Common terms and phrases
Adriana Cavarero Alberto Savinio ambivalence animal Antuono appears Argento Basile's beasts beauty civil classical comedy commedia regolare creatures cultural cunto Dante Dante's Dario Argento demonic copulation Dialoghi discourse Divine Comedy doctor dream embodiment epigraph Eros and Psyche essay evil fairy female body feminine feminism feminist figure gender genre Geryon Giants grotesque Heinrich Kramer hermaphrodite horror film human hybrid Iguana imagination Inferno Italian Italy Kristeva L'Hermafrodito Lady Grammar language Latin Leeb Leeb's Levi Levi's linguistic literary literature logic macaronic male Manzoni medieval metaphor Milan monsters monstrous mother myth narrative nature Nivasio novel ogre Pacciani Parabosco Pietro Pacciani pilgrim poetic prologue promessi sposi Psyche Psyche's Tale Rabelais Renaissance representation reveal Savinio Sayas serial killers sirens social soul specifically story succubus Suspiria symbolic Tasso theory Torquato tradition trans University Press uomini ventre Vico Vico's victims Virgilio witchcraft theorists witches woman women words