Abstract
Based on the research hypothesis that fiction portraying powerful historical women can help to open up imaginative spaces that transcend phallocentric models and propose new templates for re-thinking the powerful woman, I explore representations of twelfth-century Byzantine historian and princess Anna Komnene in historical novels by Vera Mutafchieva (1991) and Maro Douka (1995). Komnene’s double authority as a writer and political player was resented by historians, who saw her as a “power-hungry,” masculine and emasculating woman; yet the fictional (re)constructions set up a much more complex and nuanced picture, suggesting alternative configurations of female authority. Writing outside the Anglophone canon, Bulgarian Mutafchieva and Greek Douka challenge patriarchal and exceptionalist concepts of power. These writers locate Komnene’s agency not only in her position, education and gift for writing, but also in the collective actions of the women who nurtured and supported her, adopting an intersectional perspective on the construction of female authority.
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Notes
- 1.
Beard, Women and Power, 54.
- 2.
Halberstam, Female Masculinity, 9.
- 3.
Beard, Women and Power, 54.
- 4.
Ibid., 57, 59.
- 5.
See Neville, Anna Komnene.
- 6.
Gouma-Peterson, “Preface,” ix–xi; Reinsch, “Women’s Literature,” 101.
- 7.
Collins, Who is Mary Sue?, 29.
- 8.
Gibbon, A History, 26. See Cavafy’s poem “Anna Komnina” (sic).
- 9.
Buckler, Anna Comnena, 45–6.
- 10.
Neville, Anna Komnene, 31–41. For history writing as a masculine domain, see Ferris, The Achievement of Literary Authority.
- 11.
van Dieten, Nicetae Choniatae historia, pars prior, 10, lines 25–26. My translation.
- 12.
Halberstam, Female Masculinity, 9.
- 13.
Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, 170.
- 14.
A notable exception is Sir Walter Scott’s Count Robert of Paris (1832) in which Anna appears as a secondary but significant character. For an analysis of her depiction in this novel, see Kolovou, “Masculine crusaders, effeminate Greeks, and the female historian,” 89–110 and Kolovou, “First Crusade Fictions.” Scottish writer Naomi Mitchison also wrote a short fictionalized biography: Anna Comnena (1928) in the series Representative Women.
- 15.
A note on the spelling of Byzantine names: the Latin versions (Comnenus instead of Komnenos, etc) of these names have been used in the West until relatively recently, when scholars in the field of Byzantine Studies began to use the Greek spellings. The Latin types are used by Connolly (Douka’s translator). I use the Greek versions when referring to the historical characters and the Latin when it is the usage adopted in the novels.
- 16.
Rigney, Imperfect Histories, 25.
- 17.
Zorzi, “Venetian Mirrors.”
- 18.
Marcheva, “L’Historien et/ dans le pouvoir.” This accusation was also made against fellow-Bulgarian Julia Kristeva, who references Mutafchieva’s novel I, Anna Komnene, in her own novel Meurtre à Byzance (2004)—in English Murder in Byzantium.
- 19.
Vrinat-Nikolov, L’Affaire Džem et Moi, 191.
- 20.
Mutafchieva, Egō, Ē Anna Komnēnē, 66. All English translations are mine.
- 21.
Ibid., 66–7.
- 22.
Ibid., 67.
- 23.
Neville, Anna Komnene, 141. Emphasis in the original.
- 24.
Short, “Making up,” 42.
- 25.
Newman, “Byzantine Laments,” 21.
- 26.
Hill, Imperial Women, 197–8.
- 27.
Mutafchieva, Egō, Ē Anna Komnēnē, 152.
- 28.
Ibid.,171.
- 29.
Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 176.
- 30.
Mutafchieva, Egō, Ē Anna Komnēnē, 123.
- 31.
Ibid., 378.
- 32.
Ibid.
- 33.
Ahmed, Politics of Emotion, 195.
- 34.
hooks, Feminist Theory, 88–90.
- 35.
Douka was one of the founding members of the Society of Greek Authors and was elected member of the Athens City Council in 2014 with Syriza, the left-wing party in government at the time.
- 36.
Douka , Come Forth, King, 271.
- 37.
Ibid., 303.
- 38.
Ibid., 298.
- 39.
Ibid., 301.
- 40.
Ibid., 299.
- 41.
Ibid.
- 42.
Ibid., 300.
- 43.
Hill, Imperial Women, 196.
- 44.
Schippers and Sapp , “Reading Pulp Fiction,” 31.
- 45.
Douka, Come Forth, King, 300.
- 46.
Ibid., 289–90.
- 47.
Allen , “Rethinking Power.”
- 48.
Mutafchieva, Egō, Ē Anna Komnēnē, 388.
- 49.
Ibid., 391.
- 50.
Bahun-Radunović and Pourgouris, “Prefaces and Faces,” xvi.
- 51.
Newman, “Byzantine Laments”; White , “The Misunderstood Byzantine Princess.”
- 52.
I am most gratefully indebted to the late Dr. Ruth Macrides for inviting me to present this paper at the CBOMGS and CESMA joint seminar at the University of Birmingham in December 2018 and to the audience for their perceptive questions and comments.
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Kolovou, I. (2020). Reconfiguring the Template: Representations of Powerful Women in Historical Fiction—The Case of Anna Komnene. In: Bardazzi, A., Bazzoni, A. (eds) Gender and Authority across Disciplines, Space and Time. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45160-8_15
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