Male exaltation of woman as nature-mystery mirrors Gnostic Sophia and Dante’s Beatrice

Evidence

Breton does not speak of woman as subject. Nor does he ever evoke the image of the bad woman. In his work as a whole—in spite of a few manifestos and pamphlets in which he vilifies the human herd—he focuses not on categorizing the world’s superficial resistances but on revealing the secret truth: woman interests him only because she is a privileged “mouth.” Deeply anchored in nature, very close to the earth, she also appears to be the key to the beyond. One finds in Breton the same esoteric naturalism as in the Gnostics who saw in Sophia the principle of redemption and even of creation, as in Dante choosing Beatrice for guide, or Petrarch illuminated by Laura’s love. That is why the being most rooted in nature, the closest to the earth, is also the key to the beyond. Truth, Beauty, Poetry, she is All: once more all in the figure of the other, All except herself. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 605

Categorization

• XREF: Links to the Continental tradition’s treatment of woman-as-mystery; the Sophia/Dante/Beatrice lineage echoes later feminist critiques of the ‘eternal feminine’ and connects to Beauvoir’s Chapter on myth. — connects to: The mystical exaltation of woman still subordinates her as man’s instrument of salvation — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 589; Desiring woman as transfigured nature drives men to make her artificial — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 351; Dante’s work may owe a forgotten debt to Arabic medieval literature (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Desiring woman as transfigured nature drives men to make her artificial #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 351
• The mystical exaltation of woman still subordinates her as man’s instrument of salvation #qualifies (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 589
• Dante’s work may owe a forgotten debt to Arabic medieval literature #qualifies (0.78)