num_pages: 683
description: According to the Bible Eve was the first to heed Satan's advice to eat of the forbidden fruit. The notion of woman as the Devil's accomplice is prominent throughout the history of Christianity. During the nineteenth century rebellious females performed counter-readings of this misogynist tradition. Hereby Lucifer was reconceptualised as a feminist liberator of womankind and Eve became a heroine. In these reimaginings Satan is an ally in the struggle against a patriarchy supported by God the Father and his male priests.This study delineates how such Satanic feminism is expressed in a number of nineteenth-century esoteric works literary texts autobiographies pamphlets and journals newspaper articles paintings sculptures and even artefacts of consumer culture such as jewellery.We encounter figures like the suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton author and diplomat wife Aino Kallas gender-bending Theosophist H. P. Blavatsky actress Sarah Bernhardt anti-clerical witch enthusiast Matilda Joslyn Gage decadent marchioness Luisa Casati and the Luciferian lesbian poetess Rene Vivien.The analysis focuses on interfaces between esotericism literature art and the political realm. New light is thus shed on neglected aspects of the intellectual history of feminism Satanism and revisionary mythmaking.
language: English
title: Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture
publisher: Molin & Sorgenfrei