This work demonstrates the ways in which a complex of ideas with a misogynistic basis relates to the image of the venomous woman--the woman who uses poisons or potions, who has a relationship with a venomous animal, or who is herself poisonous. Hallissy suggests that the venomous woman is an image of feminine power reflected in masculine fear. The study concentrates on periods when ignorance of the medicinal effects of poisons exaggerated the potency of this image. It examines works of literature which span a large period of time but are linked by this persistent image. Through its...
This work demonstrates the ways in which a complex of ideas with a misogynistic basis relates to the image of the venomous woman--the woman who use...
This do-it-yourself course for the first-time Chaucer reader is geared specifically to high school and undergraduate students because it systematically proceeds through a clear explication of each tale and makes the tales accessible to those unfamiliar with Chaucer's work. Reading this book along with Canterbury Tales, tale by tale, will help the reader to understand and appreciate each tale, Chaucer's world, and his language. This book differs from other guides to the tales because it takes the reader along on the pilgrimage through each tale and assumes no previous experience with...
This do-it-yourself course for the first-time Chaucer reader is geared specifically to high school and undergraduate students because it systematic...
Chaucer was a keen observer of the lives of women with a remarkable ability to see beyond his culture's preconceptions concerning their proper roles. The lives of medieval women were divided into three estates--virginity, wifehood, and widowhood--each with complex rules extending to particulars of speech and dress, but all directed toward the single purpose of preserving female chastity, for which a woman was to be prepared to suffer or even die. Margaret Hallissy's lively and literate study traces Chaucer's female characterizations against a background of medieval rules and common...
Chaucer was a keen observer of the lives of women with a remarkable ability to see beyond his culture's preconceptions concerning their proper role...
In Understanding Contemporary Irish Fiction and Drama, Margaret Hallissy examines the work of a cross-section of important Irish writers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries who are representative of essential issues and themes in the canon of contemporary Irish literature. Included are early figures John Millington Synge and James Joyce; dramatists Brian Friel, Conor McPherson, and Tom Murphy; and prize-winning contemporary fiction writers such as Edna O Brien, Joseph O Connor, William Trevor, Roddy Doyle, and Colum McCann. Each chapter focuses on one significant...
In Understanding Contemporary Irish Fiction and Drama, Margaret Hallissy examines the work of a cross-section of important Irish writers of the late t...
