A Foucaultian Study of Misrecognized Female Subjectivity in William Morris’s The Wood Beyond the World

Yuanyuan Chen

Abstract


Regarding how William Morris handled women, academics are split. The Wood Beyond the World, his prose romance written from a female perspective, is instrumental in unraveling this problem. This paper utilizes Foucault’s theory of power to examine the topic of female subjectivity from the perspective of subjectivity as an entry point. Furthermore, it contends that the establishment of female subjectivity in the work is dependent on the sexes’ relationship and the presence of the male gaze, and that, as a result, women should not compare themselves unfavorably to men when doing so, but rather use themselves as a point of reference and work to cement their place in the evolution of human thought and culture.

Keywords


Female, Subjectivity, William Morris, Power

Full Text:

PDF

References


Allen, Elizabeth Estelle. 1936- The Prose Romances of William Morris. 1975. Tulane University, PhD dissertation.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

---. The History of Sexuality, Volume 2: The Use of Pleasure. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 2012.

Holloway, L.M., Palmgren, J.A.. (eds) Beyond Arthurian Romances: The Reach of Victorian Medievalism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Holland, O.. William Morris’s Utopianism: Palgrave Studies in Utopianism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2017.

Morris, William. Complete works of William Morris. E-book ed., Delphi Classics, 2015.

Taylor, Dianna, ed. Michel Foucault: Key Concepts. Chesham: Acumen, 2011.

Wiens, Pamela Bracken. Seeing "bigly and kindly": The empathic vision of William Morris. 1994. The Catholic University of America, PhD dissertation.

陈彦旭、姬蕴桐：《威廉·莫里斯对北欧<瓦特恩峡谷萨迦>的借鉴与改编》，《外语与外语教学》第1期，2022年2月，第115-124，150-151页。

[Chen, Yanxu & Ji. “William Morris's Reference and Adaptation of Scandinavian Laxdaela Saga.” Foreign Languages And Their Teaching, no. 1, 2022, pp. 150–151.]

朱海峰、杨金才：《帝国焦虑与生育控制：威廉·莫里斯小说中的优生叙事》，《外语教学》第5期，2021年，第104-108页。

[Zhu, Haifeng & Yang. “Imperial Anxiety and Birth Control: Eugenic Narratives in William Morris's Fiction.” Foreign Language Education, no. 5, 2021, pp. 104–108.]




DOI: https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.11n.3p.37

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Bookmark and Share


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

2012-2023 (CC-BY) Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD. 

International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature

To make sure that you can receive messages from us, please add the journal emails into your e-mail 'safe list'. If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox', check your 'bulk mail' or 'junk mail' folders.