Abstract

According to Mary Shelley’s 1831 Introduction, her great novel is her “hideous progeny.” This proclamation along with numerous birthing metaphors place her Introduction within the obstetric discourse field of the maternal imagination, a theory which claimed that pregnant women’s imaginations had the power to deform their fetuses. More importantly, the maternal imagination, and thus Mary Shelley’s Introduction, is a form of mêtic rhetoric with a distinctly maternal flavor.

Journal
Rhetoric Review
Published
2015-01-02
DOI
10.1080/07350198.2015.976135
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Rhetoric Society Quarterly

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