Making Waves: The Mermaid as Female Muse, with Special Reference to the Writings of H.D and Virginia Woolf

The focus of this dissertation is the exploration of mermaid images in the texts of Virginia Woolf and H.D. The mermaid is a hybrid figure, her space liminal. In her ambiguity she cannot be encompassed within the rigid categories of a world defined by binaries. Her position as an outsider to the dominant culture enables her to challenge the truth claims of the prevailing discourse. This is often perceived as threatening by those who have something to lose, while it can be liberating if you reject or feel victimized by the dominant code. In her emphasis on 'like' rather than difference, she deconstructs the traditional subject/object duality and asserts herself as the subject of her own narrative. Woolf relates an encounter between a fisherwoman/writer and a mermaid muse. This is a revolutionary idea and completely revises the more traditional assumption of the muse as the 'Other'. It feeds directly into her concept of androgynous writing and corresponds to her watery images and fluidity, her openendedness and ambiguities, which pull away from stability and fixed borders. The mermaid's emergence from the depth also emphasizes a shift from realistic narrative to the inner reality, to memory and desire. The mermaids in H.D's texts are also liberating and enabling figures. They appear as revisions of traditional male-defined mythology and religion, thus undercutting conventional truth claims. With their help, the author overcomes her 'stasis' and achieves a breakthrough from mundane reality into heightened consciousness. This is connected with her gloire and her own female aesthetic. It has been noted that D.H Lawrence and T.S. Eliot show anxiety about water, not affinity with it, in some of their texts. Images of crustaceans or loathsome transgressive figures indicate concern with loss of identity, while aridity symbolizes a spiritual wasteland. Unease about the emergence of the woman writer is connected with a perception of a vulgarised and feminised culture. Woolf and H.D responded to Eliot and Lawrence in some of their writing, and a comparison highlights gendered differences.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

ma

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

masters

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Green, Birgit

• HQ Y teulu. Priodas. Benyw.
• PN Llenyddiaeth (Cyffredinol)

Dc Identifier Grantnumber

UWTSD

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.uwtsd.ac.uk:2977