INTRODUCTION

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 11; p. 5
• Main Authors: Camden, Vera J, Hill, Kimberly S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2003
• Subjects: Bunyan, John (1628-1688); Rowlandson, Mary White (ca 1635-ca 1678)
• ISSN: 0954-0970

[...]under such a light, Rowlandson's rhetorical technique becomes stronger, achieves more thematic unity, and demonstrates that some early modern women were aware of the connections between a growing literacy, political turmoil and cultural evolution. Camden employs psychoanalysis as a body of knowledge and a critical practice to demonstrate how biblical literacy becomes a saving knowledge for young Sarah Wight whose self-mutilation and starvation become modulated and mediated by her transference to her minister, Henry Jessey, and to the signifiers of Christ's suffering and satiating body. [...]the same psychoanalysis that dealt perhaps the final blow to the world of gender binarism, is here employed to show that the complexities of Jessey's mediation of a young woman's voice cannot be easily relegated to an instancing of patriarchy pushing its dominant discourse. [...]they exhibit how women's speech can reflect transference and transformative desires, even while mediated by the authority of their church and their community's expectations.