Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Pregnant Fictions: Childbirth and the Fairy Tale in Early-Modern France

Pregnant Fictions: Childbirth and the Fairy Tale in Early-Modern France

Tucker, Holly

Hardcover

Women's HealthLiterary CriticismMythology & Folklore

ISBN10: 0814330428
ISBN13: 9780814330425
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Published: Apr 1 2003
Pages: 213
Weight: 1.14
Height: 0.79 Width: 6.46 Depth: 9.16
Language: English

How male medical authorities and female literary authors struggled to describe the inner workings of the unseen--and competed to shape public understanding of it--is the focus of this engaging work by Holly Tucker. In illuminating the gender politics underlying dramatic changes in reproductive theory and practice, Tucker shows just how tenuous the boundaries of scientific fact and marvelous fictions were in early-modern France.

On the literary front, Tucker argues, women used the fairy tale to rethink the biology of childbirth and the sociopolitical uses to which it had been put. She shows that in references to midwives, infertility, sex selection, and embryological theories, fairy-tale writers experimented with alternative ways of understanding pregnancy. In so doing they suggested new ways in which to envision women, knowledge, and power in both the public and the private spheres.

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