Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary by Marina Warner (PDF)

Description

Shows how the figure of Mary has shaped and been shaped by changing social and historical circumstances and why for all their beauty and power,the legends of Mary have condemned real women to perpetual inferiority.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Dramatic, informative and entertaining…a substantial and provocative book.” – TLS”A work of remarkably elegant and eloquent scholarship.” – Observer”Astonishing and enlightening…. packed with scholarship, imagery, vivid selection, and wry contrastive comment.” – Margaret Mead From the Inside Flap Shows how the figure of Mary has shaped and been shaped by changing social and historical circumstances and why for all their beauty and power,the legends of Mary have condemned real women to perpetual inferiority. From the Back Cover e figure of Mary has shaped and been shaped by changing social and historical circumstances and why for all their beauty and power,the legends of Mary have condemned real women to perpetual inferiority. About the Author Marina Warner is a prize-winning novelist and cultural historian whose works include From the Beast to the Blonde, Managing Monsters (the 1994 Reith Lectures), Indigo and The Lost Father (shortlisted for the Booker Prize). Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Good book coming from the second wave of feminism, although sometimes it feels like a rant. Still, the history of Mary is very well researched.Published in 1976 by Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary is both a lasting work of scholarship and an artifact of its own time—second wave feminism. As such, it focuses less on the legal restrictions that have been put on women through the centuries than it does on the influence that culture has upon our view of women. The subject of Warner’s book holds deeply personal relevance to her own experience, so at times the book might seem almost like a personal rant. However, it is an experience shared by many women—especially those who grow up Catholic—and the scholarship that Warner puts into the writing of her book should not be understated. It is a rare feat for an author to write about such a personal subject with research of such depth, and Warner does just that. Alone of All Her Sex stays admirably focused on its topic throughout, not veering too much into other feminist agendas.Warner’s book is structured in five major parts. Each part is about a certain identity that Mary represents: Mary as the Virgin, Queen, Bride, Mother, and Intercessor. Warner tells us, “I have not undertaken a history of the cult of the Virgin as such, but in chronological order I have taken aspects of her composite personality at their zenith and then worked backwards and forwards in time showing the ideas that contributed to their genesis and growth and lingered on in the tiredness of old age” (xxiii). This structure helps to emphasize Warner’s thesis that the Virgin Mary is the impossible achievement of a woman, a Christian myth whose standards place unnatural and unhealthy pressures upon the women who seek to emulate her and love her so. With this central guiding thesis, Warner’s book is less a chronological walkthrough narrative of the Virgin than it is a series of essays focusing on the various identities of Mary and pointing back to her main argument.While certainly a work of feminist scholarship, the book does not make a strong case that the female gender is the only gender that experiences the pressures of unachievable ideals—and, to Warner’s credit, she does not try too hard to argue this. Instead, she focuses on her topic without excessive judgment of “the Patriarchy.” Writing with a clear agenda, the book stays on its own track with laudable honesty, allowing its reader to judge for herself. Like C. L. R. James in The Black Jacobins, Warner is upfront about her agenda, but nonetheless backs her writing with a wide variety of sources. Alone of All Her Sex may be called a history book only loosely. It certainly does not follow the Marxist methodology of history writing, but its adherence to old school history writing is, at best, loose. It is a study of the cult of the Virgin Mary throughout the ages, and, as such, is a study on cultural and religious history—it mentions on events only insofar as these events support her thesis on the cultural history of the Virgin Mary.Warner backs her statements with a wide array of sources, proving the painstaking work and scholarship that went into the writing of her book. Because she is writing about the history and evolution of the cult of the Virgin Mary, she relies less on primary sources in the traditional sense and ancient history writing, instead preferring to quoting from traditional poetry, liturgy, songs, and other artwork, including paintings and mosaics. Warner also cites modern scholarship, thus cementing her role in the dialogue between the scholars of her generation. All this is not to say that Warner does not have a strong base in the historical progression of events surrounding the cult of the Virgin Mary. Warner often references events from the rich history of the Catholic Church; she simply does not make these events the centerpiece of her book. Written in the second half of the twentieth century, Marina Warner’s Alone of All Her Sex cannot be considered a classic, but it is certainly a book anyone who wants to learn about the Virgin Mary or feminism in the context of religion must read. A uniquely written work, Warner’s book contains the personal elements, the objective historical sources, and the cultural analysis that modern non-Marxist interpretations of history are beginning to adapt and reconcile. A telling sample of second wave feminist literature, Alone of All Her Sex is a gift to the world written from its author’s heart.

⭐Unfortunately, my review of this book will not be a critical, analytical breakdown of this book’s merits and faults primarily because I’m not very good at that…my perspective will be more emotional and thoughtful than the latter…First, this isn’t the type of book you read over a consecutive period of days and absorb the material fully therein. The book can be started or finished from any point and nothing really is lost because the author continues her narrative seamlessly thorough out even while changing the particular area of interest. Basically, the structure of the book is sort of evolutionary (in a sense): we begin at the first conception of the Marian figure as virgin and, gradually, as Christianity ‘sophisticates’ itself and loses its Eastern influences, to the final chapter of Mary as the Virgin Queen of love and war more familiar to us in the modern age.The book is extremely well written, surprisingly. I have a suspicion it is primarily because the author is British, and for some reason, she brings a solemn maturity to the subject matter which is lacking, I find, in similarly themed books written by American women from the New Goddess/Triple Goddess movement. Thus, the book shouldn’t be intimidating. It’s actually quite interesting, and lacks the sort of one-sidedness that many other books I’ve read in this genre have given. I think it just shows you can make a point by being confident in the reader’s ability to make informed and intelligent opinions on their own, which is a talent more authors should exploit.I find her perspective on the virgin extremely thought provoking. In fact, this book has a sense of sadness to it I know the author has expressed in the Prologue, but the feeling is so overwhelming thoroughout the whole book, I don’t think it was necessarily just linked to her own feelings. Now that I am no longer a Christian, it surprises me how much these ideas of womanhood and femininity have permeated the religion so much that it, of all the things the various denominations cannot agree on, seems to be the one linking factor which seemingly prevents women in the faith from achieving a sense of completion and wholeness for being herself. Reading this book unfortunately, brings back painful memories of the sort of ‘christianity’ I was exposed to as a young girl and the impossible, conflicting reality that was handed out to other young girls as puberty and adulthood loomed on the horizon.Selfishly, I wish the author had expounded a little more on how Marian stereotypes have influenced perceptions of women in other areas, namely the way the church dehumanized non-white women during the colonial period, or the modern day incarnations of the purity/wholeness duality, from the idealization in the media of pre-pubescent girls to this strange cultural wave of ‘girly’ behavior in the West which ignores the inevitable aging of women and is mutating again into the Virgin vs. the Whore in the twenty-first century myth cycle. But these are all personally wishes, and certainly don’t detract away from the beauty of the book.

⭐A deeply thought out classic that has been a source for many years and likely to remain so for those devoted to the Mother of God!

⭐Terrible

⭐Great read.

⭐VERBOSE

⭐exceptional source of information unavailable in any other collection

⭐Probably the best treatment on Mary that I have seen.

⭐Still unsurpassed since its first publication in 1976. A new edition published in 2012 is very welcome and is long overdue.

⭐Simply excellent a very informative both from a historical & theological point of view

⭐Have only just started to read this book recommended to me by Bishop Martin Warner whilst we were on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land last November.

⭐Wasn’t really into this Book. Bought due to the good write up and subject material but really not my bag.

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