Summary:The idealized lady in love poetry is frequently turned into a belle dame sans mercy, a cruel object of reproach for the lover's pitiful condition. At times, she is even portrayed as a monstrous Other, a Medusa or basilisk who has the power of life and death over the hapless lover. Beloved and terrifying, the serpentine Other with the deadly gaze serves both to reflect the alienation of the desiring subject and to mirror his ambivalence. This article examines representations of the woman as an idealized/demonized other or Other in a selection of early modern works where female figures are identified with such mythical creatures. According to legend, these serpentine monsters, whose gaze is said to petrify men, can only be vanquished with the aid of a mirror. Yet, not all treatments of these myths or figures are identical. Beautiful and hideous, heavenly and infernal, divine and monstrous, the lady as Medusa or basilisk is rife with contradictions. So much so, that it is difficult to arrive at one all-encompassing view of otherness in this regard. The brief survey of literary and theoretical texts examined in this study leads us to recommend a more nuanced approach and to suggest that the various types of otherness projected onto women in these early modern works might be viewed through the prism of Lacanian theories on otherness, which take into account multiple dimensions - namely, the Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real - that structure human subjectivity in "the mirror stage."

中文翻译：

---

作为他者的女人：早期现代法国文学中的美杜莎和蛇怪

简介：爱情诗中理想化的淑女经常被变成无情的美女，成为情人可怜状的残酷谴责对象。有时，她甚至被描绘成一个可怕的其他人，一个美杜莎或蛇怪，对不幸的情人拥有生与死的力量。心爱的、可怕的，蛇形的他者有着致命的凝视，既反映了渴望对象的异化，又反映了他的矛盾心理。本文考察了在一些早期现代作品中女性作为理想化/妖魔化的他者或他者的表现，其中女性形象被认为是这些神话生物。据传说，这些蛇形怪物，据说其凝视可以使人石化，只有借助镜子才能打败它们。然而，并非所有对这些神话或数字的处理都是相同的。美丽与丑陋，天堂与地狱，神圣与怪物，美杜莎或蛇怪的女士充满了矛盾。如此之多，以至于在这方面很难对他者达成一个包罗万象的观点。本研究中对文学和理论文本的简要调查使我们推荐一种更微妙的方法，并建议可以通过拉康关于他者的理论的棱镜来看待这些早期现代作品中投射到女性身上的各种类型的他者。考虑到多个维度——即想象的、象征的和真实的——在“镜像阶段”中构建人类的主体性。在这方面很难对他者达成一种包罗万象的观点。本研究中对文学和理论文本的简要调查使我们推荐一种更微妙的方法，并建议可以通过拉康关于他者的理论的棱镜来看待这些早期现代作品中投射到女性身上的各种类型的他者。考虑到多个维度——即想象的、象征的和真实的——在“镜像阶段”中构建人类的主体性。在这方面很难对他者达成一种包罗万象的观点。本研究中对文学和理论文本的简要调查使我们推荐一种更微妙的方法，并建议可以通过拉康关于他者的理论的棱镜来看待这些早期现代作品中投射到女性身上的各种类型的他者。考虑到多个维度——即想象的、象征的和真实的——在“镜像阶段”中构建人类的主体性。