MASCULINE–FEMININE MEDIATION THROUGH FICTION AND THE SEXUALITY OF STORYTELLING – A GENDER PERSPECTIVE ON DUNYAZADIAD BY JOHN BARTH
MASCULINE–FEMININE MEDIATION THROUGH FICTION AND THE SEXUALITY OF STORYTELLING – A GENDER PERSPECTIVE ON DUNYAZADIAD BY JOHN BARTH

Summary/Abstract: The study tries to demonstrate, in the theoretical frame of love studies and rewriting, that John Barth’s Dunyazadiad offers a type of gender reconstruction that denies the social determination of the relationships between the sexes by means of a parody of both the patriarchal machismo in its strong Eastern version and the radical feminism of the 20th century. Barth resorts to fictionalising the idea of metaphysical sex or the natural magic of love, as well as to the representation of love as an intentional construct that prompts exclusivism and duration. The interaction between the fictional love story and the theory about the sexuality of storytelling supports the author’s/characters’ identity theme – that of seeking one’s deeper self, a process in which the Eros and the act of narrating meet at the level of mythical androgyny.

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