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This book identifies a corpus of British and Polish texts that share correspondences with reference to the themes of feminine doubling, the difficulty of asserting feminine subjectivity, sexual mother-figures and symbolic father-figures. It draws on the Freudo-Lacanian psychoanalysis and the French feminist uses of it known as écriture féminine - the theories of Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous. It also introduces the theories of the forgotten Russian-Jewish psychoanalyst, Sabina Spielrein. The first part of the book takes account of specifics of Polish culture and history that made women writers marginalised within this context. In the second part, it closely and comparatively examines the selected British and Polish texts, while giving voice to the unknown, stereotyped, or forgotten Polish works. The innovative features of the book include its comparative character and the implementation of various psychoanalytical approaches to the Polish texts.
List of contents
Contents: Psychoanalysis - Comparative Literature - Polish Literature - British Literature - Women's Writing - Ècriture féminine - Reinterpretation - Doppelganger - Feminine sexuality - Feminine subjectivity - Mother-figures - Daughter-figures - Father-figures - Destruction - Eros and Thanatos - Sex and death drive - Sigmund Freud - Jacques Lacan - Luce Irigaray - Hélène Cixous - Sabina Spielrein - Charlotte Brontë - Daphne du Maurier - Narcyza michowska - Maria Konopnicka - Zofia Nalkowska - Maria Komornicka.
About the author
Klara Naszkowska completed her PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Edinburgh and holds MA in Polish Philology from the University of Warsaw. Her research interests lie in the area of psychoanalysis, 19th century women's prose and feminist critique. She has published in academic journals and collective books in Poland and abroad.
