Metamorphosis As Regression:The Illusion Of Liberation In Keats’s Lamia

As a narrative poem revolving around its eponymous serpent-heroine,Lamia is centred upon the theme of metamorphosis.An incarnation of excess and diversity,Lamia first appears as an intricate "Gordian Knot." She is a rainbow-sided creature who not only transcends the boundaries of mechanistic spectrum,but is empowered with eloquence and enchantment to reach a deal with Hermes to regain her woman’s body.The subsequent metamorphosis,however,strips off the differences from Lamia and renders her identifiable as a "maid," "virgin," and "lady bright" at the same time.Ultimately,the marriage proposal made by Lycius introduces both the intrusion of reality and the final disenchantment to the serpent heroine.The present study addresses to the question whether Lamia’s restoration back into the woman’s body is a liberation from oppression or a relapse back into passivity.It is argued that the assumption of woman’s identity renounces difference,otherises the previous autonomous subject,and finally instrumentalises the originally sensuous spontaneity and imaginative creativity through marital union.Feminist perspectives on woman’s identity and the socialisation of women in the patriarchal system are turned to for the illustration of the signification of Lamia’s final disenchantment.Lamia’s accommodation into recognisability is an appropriative reduction that is preconditioned by the necessity to be acceptable and hence lovable to Lycius and the Corinthian society.Moreover,by marriage,Lamia’s sensuous world is replaced while her imaginative faculty instrumtalised and ritualised.Metaphorically,instead of liberation,the restorative anthropomorphism reveals another exile of the serpent heroine,still another is inaugurated with Lycius’s proposal for marrage.In sum,the metamorphosis of Lamia is not liberative and generative,but sacrificial and regressive.The serpent-heroine is not liberated by her adjustment into woman’s identity but experiences further exile.Correspondingly,in Lamia,the regressive metamorphic model of the serpent heroine may shed some light on the ambivalence of Keats with regard to sensation,and the femininity represented by it.