The rise and fall of Miss Jean Brodie (in her prime)

The basic theme that runs throughout this collection of essays, as the title "Women in Love. Ritratti di donne in letteratura" itself implies, deals mainly with (in)famous heroines pertaining to World Literature (from Brunilde to my 'own' Jean Brodie). I have chosen to dwell on Jean Brodie, the charismatic yet sinister protagonist of Muriel Spark's "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" (1961), her sixth and most innovative novel, in order to show how, and why, she now lies firmly embedded within the British collective imagination, having in the meantime also been successfully transferred to stage, cinema and television, making her the very stuff of (unholy) legen