Mermaid Tales: Alice Dunbar-Nelson and A Modern Undine

Abstract

Abstract:In debating how to interpret Alice Dunbar-Nelson's novel, A Modern Undine (ca. 1901-03), scholars have largely ignored the story's close connection to the most popular mermaid story of the nineteenth century, Undine (1811), by . An extraordinarily popular text in its time, Undine was revised repeatedly in a range of media across the century. This essay argues that in order to understand Dunbar-Nelson's unpublished novel, it must be read in relation to Fouqué's mermaid story, major revisions of it by EuroAmerican women and queer writers, as well as African diaspora mermaid stories. Dunbar-Nelson's novel provides a queer critique of the racial melancholy that inheres in Fouqué's story while borrowing from African diaspora stories to modernize the mermaid. Dunbar-Nelson's novel provides us with much to think about as we contemplate the ongoing appeal of the mermaid in our own times.