The end of innocence: of old and modern Medusas

Abstract

From assumptions about the production of knowledge as a result of an interpretative process, I discuss the common sense uses of the myth of Medusa and revisit its narrative and its meanings as they inscribe notions of the human male and of the human female. I then focus on its status as symbolic norm in the collective imaginary, trace some of its derivations in philosophical thought and show how contemporary women writers intervene in that imaginary by displacing and subverting meanings crystallized by the norms which feeds our cultural tradition.