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.
Author(s): Marie Maclean
Series: Routledge Library Editions: Women and Writing, 3
Edition: 2
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 283
City: London
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
