The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was: Myths of Self-Imitation PDF
Preview The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was: Myths of Self-Imitation
The Woman Who Pretended to be Who She was: Myths of Self-Imitation Wendy Doniger OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS THE WOMAN WHO PRETENDED TO BE WHO SHE WAS This page intentionally left blank THE WOMAN WHO PRETENDED TO BE WHO SHE WAS Myths of Self-Imitation Wendy Doniger 3 3 Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Copyright © by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. Madison Avenue, New York, New York www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Doniger, Wendy. The woman who pretended to be who she was : Myths of self-imitation / Wendy Doniger p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN--- . Impersonation in literature. . Self in literature. I. Title. PN.ID '.—dc “Before the World Was Made,” by W. B. Yeats, reprinted by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of Michael B. Yeats and Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from THE COLLECTED WORKS OF W. B. YEATS, VOLUME I: THE POEMS, REVISED, edited by Richard J. Finneran. Copyright © by the Macmillan Company; copyright renewed © by Bertha Georgie Yeats. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper F R.D., J R D [] R D [] This page intentionally left blank ACKNOWLEDGMENTS An early version of this book was presented as an Erbschaft Unserer Zeit Lecture at the Einstein Forum, Berlin, in December , where Lorraine Daston’s bril- liant response revolutionized my approach to the topic; that lecture, and Daston’s response, were published as Der Mann, der mit seiner eigenen Frau Ehebruch beg- ing; Mit einem Kommentar von Lorraine Daston (Berlin: Suhrkamp, ), and I am grateful to Suhrkamp for permission to reproduce parts of that book here in English. Back in Chicago, William Elison inspired me with ideas about Filmistan, Jim Chan- dler and Tom Gunning aided and abetted me in our shared addiction to B fi lms, and Sarita Warshawsky brought her deep appreciation of Wagner to bear on my chapter about Siegfried. I am grateful to Annie Dillard for encouraging me to retell several stories that I have told in print before, because, she assured me, none of my readers would remember any of my earlier books. Some parts of the book, in embryo, have been published as “The Man Who Com- mitted Adultery with His Own Wife,” in The Longing For Home, edited by Leroy S. Rouner (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, ): –; “When a Kiss Is Still a Kiss: Memories of the Mind and the Body in Ancient India and Hollywood,” the Kenyon Review , no. (Winter ): –; “The Dreams and Dramas of a Jealous Hindu Queen: Vasavadatta,” in Dream Cultures: Toward a Comparative History of Dreaming, edited by Guy Stroumsa and David Shulman (New York: Oxford University Press, ): –; “The Mythology of the Face-Lift,” Social Research, “Faces,” , no. (Spring ): –; “The Man Who Committed Adultery with His Own Wife” (Program notes for the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre production of All’s Well That Ends Well), Playbill, April ,–; “The Masques of Gods and Demons,” in Behind the Mask: Dance, Healing and Possession in South Indian Ritual, edited by David Shulman and Deborah Thiagarajan (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, ): -; “Self-Imitation in Literature,” Kenyon Review, no. (Spring ); and “Pretending to Be Who You Think You Are: Identity and Masks,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review (Spring ): -. I owe an even greater debt than usual to my editor, Cynthia Read, who read and minutely commented on not one but two drafts line by line, page by page, and real- ized, before I did, that I had accidentally written two books rolled up into one. I forgive her for simultaneously urging me to cut and plying me with new examples of books and fi lms (“The stubborn beast fl esh kept creeping back,” as on the Island of Dr. Moreau). William Elison provided the index and countless useful suggestions. This book is dedicated to Lorraine Daston, who let me talk about self-imitation for hours on end, year after year, and responded in ways that always clarifi ed and often revolutionized my understanding; and when, as usual, I couldn’t see the forest for the trees, she told me what the book was about. It is also dedicated to my mother, Rita Roth Doniger, who brought me up on Wagner and Rosenkavalier. Havana, Cuba viii • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS CONTENTS Introduction: The Self-Impersonation of Mythology Pre- and Postmodern Narrative Recycling Chronology and Intertextuality The Möbius Strip and the Zen Diagram Chapter : The Mythology of Self-Impersonation Self-Impersonation Self-Impersonation by the Famous and the Literary Nature Imitating Art Imitating Nature Playing within the Play Virtual Reality Acting Out in Politics Ironic Tangos Chapter : The Man Who Mistook His Wife for His Wife The Marriage of Udayana Ratnavali, The Lady of the Jeweled Necklace Priyadarshika, The Woman Who Shows Her Love The Marriage of Figaro The Self-Replicating Wife Chapter : The Double Amnesia of Siegfried and Brünnhilde Thidreks Saga Völsunga Saga Nibelungenlied
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