Abstracts
Abstract
This essay explores the representation of motherhood in Mary Shelley's second novel, Valperga. It argues that if the name of the hero Castruccio connotes castration, this is because the novel does indeed figure its numerous literal and figurative mothers as castrating females, and is fundamentally unable to imagine of offer a vision of complete manhood.
Appendices
Works Cited
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- Dunn, Jane. Moon in Eclipse. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978.
- Hill-Miller, Katherine. “My Hideous Progeny”: Mary Shelley, William Godwin, and the Father-Daughter Relationship. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1995.
- Lew, Joseph W. “God’s Sister: History and Ideology in Valperga.” The Other Mary Shelley: Beyond Frankenstein. Ed. Audrey A. Fisch, Anne K. Mellor and Esther H. Schor. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993. 159-181.
- Mellor, Anne K. Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters. London: Routledge, 1988.
- O’Sullivan, Barbara Jane. “Beatrice in Valperga: A New Cassandra.” The Other Mary Shelley: Beyond Frankenstein. Ed. Audrey A. Fisch, Anne K. Mellor and Esther H. Schor. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993. 140-158.
- Shelley, Mary. The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck. London: Coburn and Bentley, 1830.
- ———. Frankenstein. London: Lackington, Hughes, Mavor, and Jones, 1818.
- ———. Valperga; or, The Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca. 3 vols. London: G. and W.B. Whittaker, 1823.
- Wake, Ann M. Frank. “Women in the Active Voice: Recovering Female History in Mary Shelley’s Valperga and Perkin Warbeck.” Iconoclastic Departures: Mary Shelley after Frankenstein. Ed. Syndy M. Conger, Frederick S. Frank, and Gregory O’Dea. Cranbury, N.J.: Associated UPs, 1997. 235-59.
- White, Daniel E. ““The god undeified”: Mary Shelley’s Valperga, Italy, and the Aesthetic of Desire.” Romanticism on the Net 6 (May 1997) 30 July 2004 http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/1997/v/n6/005750ar.html
10.7202/005750ar