Loving Subjects (American University Studies Series IV, English Language and Literature)

Loving Subjects examines the intersections between female desire and the dynamics of narrative with a view to identifying the scope for the representation of an autonomous female subjectivity capable of signifying its desire for the other. This book surveys and interrogates the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Lacan, the poststructuralist feminist theories of Kristeva and Irigaray, and the theories of lesbian desire propounded by De Lauretis and Butler in order to provide the conceptual framework for the discussion of female desire within selected twentieth-century novels by women. Intensive analyses of literary works by Antonia White, Rosamond Lehmann, Toni Morrison, Radclyffe Hall, Isabel Miller, Jeanette Winterson, Anita Brookner, Marilynne Robinson, and Luce Irigaray uncover a variety of robust textual strategies employed by these writers to circumvent the phallocratic prohibition against the signification of female desire.