Oedipus and the Devil
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Product Description
Product Description
This bold and imaginative book marks out a different route towards understanding the body, and its relationship to culture and subjectivity. Amongst other subjects, Lyndal Roper deals with the nature of masculinity and feminity.
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First Sentence
Judith Bennett has recently urged that the most important task currently confronting feminist historians is to think more clearly about the analysis of historical change. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Judith Bennett has recently urged that the most important task currently confronting feminist historians is to think more clearly about the analysis of historical change. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"Oedipus and the Devil" is a very interesting historical approach to the experiences of the female body in Early Modern Europe. Lyndal Roper's argument is that sexual difference has its own psychological and physiological reality and that modern scholars should take more seriously into account the body and the irrational and unconscious element in history. Although influenced by the hermeneutics of Sigmund Freud and especially the post-structuralist views of Jacques Lacan and by the post-modernist view of body and sexuality as it mainly expressed by Michel Foulcault, Lyndal Roper argues that sexual difference is neither purely discursive nor merely social; it is also physical. Bodies have materiality, and this materiality expressed in corporal experiences should have its place in history as well.
The writer applies her theory to the witch-hunting in Augsburg during the Reformation in Germany and suggests that the stereotypical case of witchcraft was related with maternity. In Augsburg, many witchcraft accusations were made by mothers who had lost their newborn children and had accused their lying-in-maid of the death of their babies. The writer attributes this kind of witchcraft accusation to the changes a woman's body undergoes when she bears children. According to modern psychology, women, for some weeks after the childbirth, have a mixture of feelings towards the infant that may extend to anger, envy or even wishing harm to the child. So, the mother projected her guilt on the woman who was nearer her, namely on the lying-in-maid and so the lying-in-maid "became" the "bad mother". Lyndal Roper places this model in the framework of the idealization of motherhood in seventeenth century German society's recovery from the Thirty Years' War. Especially the population of Augsburg seems to have been very sensitive towards fertility and maternity since after the war the population had halved.
Lyndal Roper's analysis, based on the interaction between the social structure and the political reality on the one side and the psychological situation and the body of the female individual on the other, introduces body and its physical dimensions into history and suggests it as a useful tool for the understanding not only of gender relations but also of the social and political sphere. Thanks to its multilateral analysis "Oedipus and the Devil" is a very interesting reading not only for historians and gender theorists but also for the general reader.
The writer applies her theory to the witch-hunting in Augsburg during the Reformation in Germany and suggests that the stereotypical case of witchcraft was related with maternity. In Augsburg, many witchcraft accusations were made by mothers who had lost their newborn children and had accused their lying-in-maid of the death of their babies. The writer attributes this kind of witchcraft accusation to the changes a woman's body undergoes when she bears children. According to modern psychology, women, for some weeks after the childbirth, have a mixture of feelings towards the infant that may extend to anger, envy or even wishing harm to the child. So, the mother projected her guilt on the woman who was nearer her, namely on the lying-in-maid and so the lying-in-maid "became" the "bad mother". Lyndal Roper places this model in the framework of the idealization of motherhood in seventeenth century German society's recovery from the Thirty Years' War. Especially the population of Augsburg seems to have been very sensitive towards fertility and maternity since after the war the population had halved.
Lyndal Roper's analysis, based on the interaction between the social structure and the political reality on the one side and the psychological situation and the body of the female individual on the other, introduces body and its physical dimensions into history and suggests it as a useful tool for the understanding not only of gender relations but also of the social and political sphere. Thanks to its multilateral analysis "Oedipus and the Devil" is a very interesting reading not only for historians and gender theorists but also for the general reader.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"Oedipus and the Devil" is a very interesting historical approach to the experiences of the female body in Early Modern Europe. Lyndal Roper's argument is that sexual difference has its own psychological and physiological reality and that modern scholars should take more seriously into account the body and the irrational and unconscious element in history. Although influenced by the hermeneutics of Sigmund Freud and especially the post-structuralist views of Jacques Lacan and by the post-modernist view of body and sexuality as it mainly expressed by Michel Foulcault, Lyndal Roper argues that sexual difference is neither purely discursive nor merely social; it is also physical. Bodies have materiality, and this materiality expressed in corporal experiences should have its place in history as well.
The writer applies her theory to the witch-hunting in Augsburg during the Reformation in Germany and suggests that the stereotypical case of witchcraft was related with maternity. In Augsburg, many witchcraft accusations were made by mothers who had lost their newborn children and had accused their lying-in-maid of the death of their babies. The writer attributes this kind of witchcraft accusation to the changes a woman's body undergoes when she bears children. According to modern psychology, women, for some weeks after the childbirth, have a mixture of feelings towards the infant that may extend to anger, envy or even wishing harm to the child. So, the mother projected her guilt on the woman who was nearer her, namely on the lying-in-maid and so the lying-in-maid "became" the "bad mother". Lyndal Roper places this model in the framework of the idealization of motherhood in seventeenth century German society's recovery from the Thirty Years' War. Especially the population of Augsburg seems to have been very sensitive towards fertility and maternity since after the war the population had halved.
Lyndal Roper's analysis, based on the interaction between the social structure and the political reality on the one side and the psychological situation and the body of the female individual on the other, introduces body and its physical dimensions into history and suggests it as a useful tool for the understanding not only of gender relations but also of the social and political sphere. Thanks to its multilateral analysis "Oedipus and the Devil" is a very interesting reading not only for historians and gender theorists but also for the general reader.
The writer applies her theory to the witch-hunting in Augsburg during the Reformation in Germany and suggests that the stereotypical case of witchcraft was related with maternity. In Augsburg, many witchcraft accusations were made by mothers who had lost their newborn children and had accused their lying-in-maid of the death of their babies. The writer attributes this kind of witchcraft accusation to the changes a woman's body undergoes when she bears children. According to modern psychology, women, for some weeks after the childbirth, have a mixture of feelings towards the infant that may extend to anger, envy or even wishing harm to the child. So, the mother projected her guilt on the woman who was nearer her, namely on the lying-in-maid and so the lying-in-maid "became" the "bad mother". Lyndal Roper places this model in the framework of the idealization of motherhood in seventeenth century German society's recovery from the Thirty Years' War. Especially the population of Augsburg seems to have been very sensitive towards fertility and maternity since after the war the population had halved.
Lyndal Roper's analysis, based on the interaction between the social structure and the political reality on the one side and the psychological situation and the body of the female individual on the other, introduces body and its physical dimensions into history and suggests it as a useful tool for the understanding not only of gender relations but also of the social and political sphere. Thanks to its multilateral analysis "Oedipus and the Devil" is a very interesting reading not only for historians and gender theorists but also for the general reader.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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1 review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
religion and social mores
14 Jun 2009
Format:Paperback
Roper describes a strange era, when the Catholic and Protestant churches of western Europe exercised a degree of control over the social mores simply unknown to the modern reader. Sexual stereotyping is shown, notably in the context of drunkeness, gambling and fighting by males. We also see into the social structures of the German cities in the 16th century. When alternate gatherings like guilds were an important part of the daily fabric.
Much of the narrative naturally delves into the religious symbolisms and also the reality of two branches of Christianity struggling for secular influence in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.
Much of the narrative naturally delves into the religious symbolisms and also the reality of two branches of Christianity struggling for secular influence in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.
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