Event overview
Goldsmiths Literature Seminar
The association of women with an oral tale telling that is inauthentic or that is in some way responsible for the dissemination of a lie, is inscribed into the derogatory and gender biased language used to describe acts of storytelling. The old wives tale is often culturally associated with a woman who is weaving or spinning as she tells her tale. To tell a tale is to ‘weave a story’ or spin a yarn.’ Such proverbial expressions are also used to express the opinion that someone is telling a lie, engaging in hyperbole, or in some way stretching the truth. However, against this association of weaving woman with repressive notions of female creativity, inadequacy and exclusion, there exists a tradition of female authors rewriting classical representations of weaving women as defiant female authors, who have the power to provoke social change through their narratives of lived experience. In ‘Arachnologies: The Woman, The Text and the Critic,’ Nancy K. Miller draws on the myth of Arachne to provide a critical model of this reading and rewriting practice, which she terms ‘over-reading.’ This is a critical approach to the feminist reading and rewriting of texts in order to recover positive representations of female authorship that are already present in existing texts. In this model, Miller proposes that feminist author’s take up a critical positioning outside of the text to construct a representation of female authorship that ‘weaves against’ the dominant patriarchal discourse of female creative lack.
In this paper, I will argue that Miller’s use of the Arachne myth as a critical model for feminist reading and rewriting is deeply problematic. Arachne is punished for not just for creating a subversive text, but because she declared her creative autonomy. Her attempt to reject Athena’s influence over her art and prove herself the equal of the patriarchal godhead, ultimately leads her to attempt suicide. Arachne’s punishment is to be transformed into a spider. Silenced and disembodied, she is forced to spin in crude imitation of the weaver’s art. Miller’s reading of the Arachne myth creates a critical model that inadvertently excludes feminist writers from dominant representation and is complicit with negative patriarchal representations of the suffering female artist, driven mad and suicidal by what she creates. It is my contention that Miller reintroduces and positions the gendered body of the feminist author in the wrong place. In this paper, I will present an alternative reading of the Arachne myth in order to present a critical approach to feminist reading and rewriting that is not reliant upon the feminist poetics of exclusion. While Arachne may be doomed to spin outside of representation for eternity, the new female text maker has no need to construct her feminocentric protest from a place of exclusion. She can choose to inscribe herself into a representation of a female text maker already present in an existing text, discovering from within, and challenging the patriarchal construction of the already represented female within the text she intends to rewrite.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 6 Dec 2012 | 6:30pm - 8:00pm |
Accessibility
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