Smeh Meduze
Laugh of the Medusa

Summary/Abstract: In the essay "Le rire de la Méduse," (1975) Cixous first explains the invention of a new insurgent writing that will allow women to "transform their history, to seize the occasion to speak." Further on, she challenges her readers: "Écris-toi: il faut que ton corps se fasse entendre. Alors jailliront les immenses ressources de l'inconscient." ("Write yourself. Your body must be heard. Only then will the immense resources of the unconscious spring forth.") With the publication of this widely quoted essay/manifesto, Hélène Cixous opened lively debate on how women should break the bonds of rhetoric and myth that have kept them from writing and participating in the public sphere. The essay does not stand alone, however, since its sentiments appear frequently in other texts written by Cixous at around the same time and in her later writing even as she broadened her exploration of difference and its effects. To Cixous, the practice of écriture féminine is part of an ongoing concern with exclusion, with the transformation of subjectivity, and the struggle for identity. This section includes quotes from the essay, followed by comments on its impact - as a text and as part of a larger scheme

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