"Delusive beaut": femmes fatales in English Romanticism
The femme fatale as a nineteenth-century motif has been well-researched and a whole body of critical literature attests to her haunting fascination for literary critics. This study interrogates literary definitions of the femme fatale and challenges the notion that the femme fatale is a "post-Romantic", late nineteenth-century type. Whilst arguing for a more precise discrimination, it considers the earlier emergence ...