Incest in literature

Incest is an important thematic element and plot device in literature, with famous early examples such as Sophocles' classic Oedipus Rex, a tragedy in which the title character unwittingly kills his father and marries his mother.^[1] It occurs in medieval literature,^[2] both explicitly, as related by denizens of Hell in Dante's Inferno, and winkingly, as between Pandarus and Criseyde in Chaucer's Troilus.^[3] The Marquis de Sade was famously fascinated with "perverse" sex acts such as incest,^[4] which recurs frequently in his works,The 120 Days of Sodom (1785), Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795), and Juliette (1797).

Modern literature[edit]

Vladimir Nabokov's novel Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969) deals very heavily with the incestuous relationships in the intricate family tree of the main character, Van Veen.^[5] In his novel Hogg, written in 1969, Samuel R. Delany employed incest as a way to push the boundaries of heteronormative sex.^[6] Toni Morrison's debut novel The Bluest Eye (1970) tells the story of Pecola, a young girl raped by her father. Dorothy Allison wrote about incest and sexual abuse in Trash: Short Stories (1988) and Bastard Out of Carolina (1992).

^ Mullan, John (2008-10-03). "Ten of the best books on incestuous relationships". The Guardian. ISSN 1756-3224. OCLC 60623878. Archived from the original on 2023-08-18. Retrieved 2023-08-25.
^ Warren, Richard J. (2016-06-06). Incest in Medieval Literature: Literary Depictions of Incest from Beowulf to Shakespeare. Muddy Pig Press. ISBN 978-0-692-73282-3. Archived from the original on 2023-08-25. Retrieved 2023-08-25.
^ Sévère, Richard (Winter 2018). "Pandarus and Troilus's Bromance: Male Bonding, Sodomy, and Incest in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde". Texas Studies in Literature & Language. 60 (4). University of Texas Press: 423–442. doi:10.7560/TSLL60402. ISSN 0040-4691.
^ Schaeffer, Neil (2000). The Marquis de Sade: A Life. Harvard University Press. p. 122. ISBN 9780674003927.
^ Appel, Alfred Jr. (1969-05-04). "Ada: An Erotic Masterpiece That Explores the Nature of Time". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522. Archived from the original on 2023-08-21. Retrieved 2023-08-25.
^ Di Filippo, Paul (2012-04-22). "Paul Di Filippo reviews Samuel R. Delany". Locus. ISSN 0047-4959. Archived from the original on 2023-08-21. Retrieved 2023-08-25.

Szobel, Ilana (2021). Flesh of My Flesh: Sexual Violence in Modern Hebrew Literature. State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-1-4384-8457-0.
Leeson, Miles Richard John, ed. (2018). Incest in contemporary literature. Manchester: Manchester university press. ISBN 978-1-5261-2216-2.
Quilligan, Maureen (2005). Incest and Agency in Elizabeth's England. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-1905-0.
Rank, Otto (1992). The incest theme in literature and legend: fundamentals of a psychology of literary creation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-4176-7.
Rodi-Risberg, Marinella (2022). Intersectional Trauma in American Women Writers' Incest Novels from the 1990s. Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-96619-5. ISBN 978-3-030-96618-8.
Rouillard, Linda Marie (2020). Medieval Considerations of Incest, Marriage, and Penance. Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-35602-6. ISBN 978-3-030-35601-9.

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