The Name of the Mother

Writing Illegitimacy

Marie Maclean

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781032265568
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000653113
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

In this original and highly accomplished study, first published in 1994, Marie Maclean studies the writings of social rebels and explores the relationship between their personal narratives and illegitimacy.

The case studies which Maclean examines fall into four groups:

• those which stress alternative family structures and 'female genealogies'
• those which pair female illegitimacy and revolution
• those which question the deliberate refusal of the name of the father by the legitimate
• those which study the revenge of genius on the society which excludes it

Skilfully interweaving feminist theory, French literary criticism, social and cultural history, deconstruction and psychoanalytic theory, Maclean traces the place of these personal narratives of illegitimacy in history and their use in theory, from Elizabeth I to Freud, Sartre and Derrida.

The Name of the Mother will be of vital interest and importance to any student of critical theory, feminist philosophy, French or cultural studies.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1 Performances of exclusion
• 2 Myth and psychoanalysis: legitimate and illegitimate
• 3 Mythical histories, historical myths
• 4 A female genealogy: the en-gendering of George Sand
• 5 Opposition and revolution: Olympe de Gouges and the rights of the dispossessed
• 6 The male/female Messiah: Flora Tristan
• 7 My mother the Revolution: Louise Michel
• 8 Symbolic delegitimation
• 9 ‘Better to reign in Hell . . .’
• 10 Delegitimation by proxy
• 11 Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index