![]() Pérez opens with excellent analysis of Irish mythology, as she links the Morgan myth with the Celtic ‘Sovereignty Goddess’ (38) whose destructivity and sexuality were linked with rituals of kingship. To explore the profoundly ambivalent role of Morgan in Arthurian literature, Pérez uses Klein’s concept of the Oresteian mother as offering both the ‘good’ breast of the ‘nurturing’ mother and the ‘bad’ breast of sexual aggressiveness (18). ![]() ![]() Pursuing a subject that has generated such fine work as Lucy Allen Paton’s Studies in the Fairy Mythology of Arthurian Romance and Carolyne Larrington’s King Arthur’s Enchantresses, Pérez finds a distinctive voice by making structural use of psychoanalytic theory (particularly that of Melanie Klein) in a survey that ranges from early-medieval Irish mythology to contemporary popular culture.ĭirecting scholars’ eyes beyond the phallocentric Oedipal Complex to the ‘Oresteian Position’ shaped by the ‘Law of the Mother’ (15), Pérez reads Morgan as a transcendent figure who both allures and unnerves ‘male egos’ by combining the roles of ‘Mother’ and ‘Lover’ (14). Pérez systematically investigates the perennial mystery concerning the Morgan who both harms and heals King Arthur, and offers insightful readings of such alleged analogues as the Lady of the Lake, Morgause, and the Loathly Lady. ![]() Presenting Morgan la Fey as the archetype of a number of powerful figures who combine nurturing and sexual roles, Kristina Pérez’s Myth of Morgan la Fey is an engaging study of ambivalent female identity in Arthurian romance. ![]()
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