ABSTRACT
Since Ovid, the concept of metamorphosis has been an irresistible temptation for writers, not only as a metaphor for shifting personal identity but as a way of exploring ideas of cultural and political transition. The essays in this volume show how authors from Ovid, Chaucer, and Shakespeare to Thomas Mann, Karen Blixen, and 20th-century science fiction writers, have used this pervasive concept to raise fundamental questions about the nature and agency of radical change. Among the broad topics addressed are how shifts in scientific understanding intersect with and even effect transformations in literary expression; the differing values attached to the language of metamorphosis over time; and the connection between these values and structures of power, particularly gender relations. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Darko Suvin, Alessandro Perutelli, Elsa Linguanti, Douglas Burnham, Enrico Giaccherini, Lia Pacinotti, Michael St John, Rocco Coronato, Silvia Bruti, Elisabetta Cori, Judith Rorai Milanesi, Catherine Burgass, Luca Biagiotti, Stefania Magnoni, Daniel Weavis, Julian North, Ashley Chantler, Martin Halliwell, Patrick Quinn, Roberta Ferrari, Silvia Bigliazzi, and Nicoletta Caputo.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part One|22 pages
Beginning Metamorphoses
part Two|47 pages
Back to the Future: Metamorphoses, Science and Science Fiction
part Three|39 pages
Changing Discourse: The Language of Metamorphosis
chapter Chapter 10|7 pages
From Incest to Theophany: Metamorphosis Under the Aegis of Patriarchy in Pericles
part Four|63 pages
The Changing Self: Metamorphic Identities and Roles
chapter Chapter 11|8 pages
A Whirlpool of Change: Metamorphosis and Identity Politics in Karen Blixen's 'The Monkey'
chapter Chapter 13|12 pages
The War of the Pamphlets: Joseph Swetnam and the Identity of Early Modern Woman
chapter Chapter 14|12 pages
The Impressionable World: Henry James, Impressionism and the Creative Consciousness
part Five|70 pages
From There to Here: Metamorphosis and Intertextuality
chapter Chapter 18|12 pages
The Erosion of Sexual Power in the Femme Fatale: D'Annunzio Transforms Swinburne
chapter Chapter 19|11 pages
(Textual) Metamorphoses in the Fiction of Antonio Tabucchi: The 'Hallucination' of Requiem
chapter Chapter 20|11 pages
A Portrait of Quixote as a Young Woman: Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote
chapter Chapter 22|12 pages
'I can add colours to the chameleon': King Richard III's Metamorphic History
part Six|19 pages
Ending to Begin Again