ABSTRACT
Like Ryder, Almanack is a polyphonic text, but a polyphonic text which hinges on the polymorphous nature of female identity. Almanack's linkage of textuality and sexuality then can be read both as an example of what Helene Cixous calls ecriture feminine: writing which is subversive and uncontainable, and as part of a cultural moment in which sex roles were being re-defined and made visible. Almanack persistently investigates the defining process, and persistently highlights the limitations of any attempt to define women. The combination of overdetermination, the focus on the gaze, and the resistance to definition seen throughout Almanack creates a context in which the reader becomes very aware of the constructed nature of femininity. Although Almanack seems to mock the continued influence of sexological literature, that literature generated a series of terms to articulate sexuality: this multiplicity was matched by changes in women's high fashion.
