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First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
List of contents
Acknowledgments Chapter 1. Introduction: Narrative Apertures and Physical Hybridism-The Questioning of Authoritative Meaning The Origins of the Medieval Marvelous Philosophical Negation and the Monstrous The Demotion of the Monster and Its Contemporary Resurgence Methodology and Theoretical Concerns Four Hybrid Types Chapter 2. Passing for True: Gender As Performance in Le Roman De Silence and L'enfant De Sable The Construction of Gender The Law of the Father Inscription: Naming and Clothing Adolescence: The Challenge to a Dual Gender Identity Passing Staging Representation Chapter 3. Parallel Ambiguities: Narrative and Generic The Reader's Double Perspective Linguistic and Narrative Ambiguities in the Roman de Silence Linguistic and Narrative Ambiguities in L'Enfant de sable Chapter 4. The Ultimate Challenge to the Primacy of the Sexed Body The Unveiling The Cultural Creation of Gender The Possibility of a Body Constructed by Performance The Cultural Construction of Sex Feminism and the (Anti-)Essentialism Debates Multiple Readers/Multiple Readings Sexual-Generic Ambiguity and Narrative Openendedness Chapter 5. Conclusion: The Hybrid As Frame The Hybrid Figure: A Challenge to the Natural Order The Literary Hybrid As Cultural Metaphor Notes Bibliography
About the author
Erika E. Hess received her Ph.D. in Romance Languages from the University of Oregon in 2000. She currently teaches French at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
Summary
This volume is a close reading of the female cross-dresser in 13th century French romance, examining the interplay between physical and narrative ambiguity.
