Penelope’s Daughters

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At the origin of Western literature stands Queen Penelope-faithfully waiting for her husband to come home: keeping house, holding on to the throne, keeping the suitors at arm’s length, preserving Odysseus’ place and memory, deserted for the pursuit of war and adventures, and bringing up a son alone, but always keeping the marriage intact. Yet recently the character of Penelope, long the archetype of abandoned, faithful, submissive, passive wife, has been reinterpreted by feminist criticism and re-envisioned by three modern novels - in French, English, and Italian - to emerge as a central, strong, self-determing, and erotically liberated female icon. Dell'Abate-Celebi presents these novels-by Annie Leclerc, Margaret Atwood and Silvana La Spina-as feminist revisions of myths of womanhood and as rewritings of female archetypes from a feminist perspective that broaden the definition of femininity to include new possibilities and more inclusive representations of female identity.