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Arachne i Atena. W stronę innej poetyki pisarstwa kobiecego
Arachne and Athena: Towards a Different Poetics of Women’s Writing

Author(s): Monika Świerkosz
Subject(s): History, Language and Literature Studies, Literary Texts, Fiction, Studies of Literature, Ancient World, Recent History (1900 till today), Polish Literature
Published by: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: women’s writing; somatopoetics; arachnology; Maria Dąbrowska; body and text

Summary/Abstract: This article discusses Nancy K. Miller’s project of arachnology. Świerkosz presents Miller’s reinterpretation of Arachne as a creative woman (rather than a spider) and of Athena, who (contrary to many feminist readings of the myth) also embodies a certain kind of feminine creativity. Thus Świerkosz questions the somatic model of writing that many critics (including G. Borkowska, A. Araszkiewicz, K. Kłosińska, H. Cixous, I. Irigaray, J. Kristeva) view as the only authentic (and anti-phallogocentric) way for women to find expression in art. Building on scholarship on Maria Dąbrowska’s biography and work as a case study, Świerkosz shows that a narrow definition of womanhood impacts our reading, as does literary historians’ tendency to ignore the ambivalent relationship between gender and literature.

  • Issue Year: 2015
  • Issue No: 6
  • Page Range: 70-90
  • Page Count: 21
  • Language: Polish