The Cauda Pavonis and Byatt's Female Visionary in the Tetralogy

British writer A. S. Byatt employs alchemical imagery substantially in her Tetralogy. She redefines god as an androgynous being in the four occult narratives, and the four gods represent virginity, life, death, and rebirth, the four stages of an alchemical process, which also symbolize the life stages of the main character, Frederica Potter. The alchemical structure serves at least a double purpose for Byatt. First, she successfully brings her heroine's sex versus intellect conflict into a metaphorical scheme already constructed by Jung. Second, she successfully creates a whole repertoire of female visionaries whose prototypes are crosses between fertility goddesses and alchemical divinities, and by so doing, she underlines the importance of intellectual pursuit for her female artists

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• Aspects of the Masculine

  C G Jung, John Beebe et al.•Aspects of the Masculine•1989

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