Melusine The Serpent Goddess in A. S. Byatt’s Possession and in Mythology

Gillian Alban pursues the fairy Melusine snake-woman image through the plot and poetry of A.S. Byatt’s novel Possession , into medieval legend and beyond into her antecedents in ancient myth. The book describes the erotically inspiring foce of Melusine’s love story, draws parallels with goddesses such as Lamia, Ishtar or Inanna, Isis and Asherah, and identifies Melusine;s creativ dynasties and construcions. Alban deconstructs part of Genesis, including Adam and Eve and the crime of Cain and illuminates the Old Testament worship of the goddess Asherah alongside the male Yahweh. This study sweeps away limiting assumptions about the female sex, restoring to them the dignity acknowledged to women of old, thereby making a forceful statement about the power and creativity of women.