Heroine or Succubus? Blodeuwedd, Taliesin, and Artificial Life
‘Blodeuwedd is one of the unforgettable heroines of Welsh mythology. In the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi (c.1100) she is created out of flowers to be the wife of the hero Lleu of the Skilful Hand, whom she ultimately betrays. A century of commentators and creative people have seen her as a feminist figure, who follows her own heart and desires and who suffers a cruel and unjust punishment by being turned into an owl. This talk ranges widely over the theme of the artificial women in western literature – Pandora, Pygmalion’s famous statue – to suggest ways in which the original audience of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi might have interpreted the story—ways which might be strikingly different and less approving than the one which has become normal in our own cultural context. Is she a misunderstood heroine—or a succubus?!
Speaker Bio:
Dr Mark Williams is Fellow and Tutor in English at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, and a specialist in the Celtic literatures and languages. He is the author of Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth (2016) and The Celtic Myths that Shape the Way We Think (2021). He is also a qualified Jungian psychoanalyst in private practice in Oxford.
Curated & Hosted by:
Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience
Image: Drawing by Lena HB
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