Efrossini Spentzou
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199255689
- eISBN:
- 9780191719608
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255689.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book presents a study which reconstructs the experiences of the abandoned heroines of the Heroides, which have been largely ignored by past criticism. The book seeks ways to isolate, ...
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This book presents a study which reconstructs the experiences of the abandoned heroines of the Heroides, which have been largely ignored by past criticism. The book seeks ways to isolate, characterize, and release the female voice and experience within Ovid's male-authored text. Building on a wide range of ancient as well as modern images and reflections on gender and writing, the book attempts to map the relationship between gendered sensitivities and experience and generic expression and choices. The book uses the insight gained by the boom of intertextual studies in recent Latin scholarship to go a step further and address explicitly the ideologies of intertextual studies. This is a book about readers and reading, just as much as about women and gender, and it is also a study of the intricate and heated negotiations behind the interpretative act.Less
This book presents a study which reconstructs the experiences of the abandoned heroines of the Heroides, which have been largely ignored by past criticism. The book seeks ways to isolate, characterize, and release the female voice and experience within Ovid's male-authored text. Building on a wide range of ancient as well as modern images and reflections on gender and writing, the book attempts to map the relationship between gendered sensitivities and experience and generic expression and choices. The book uses the insight gained by the boom of intertextual studies in recent Latin scholarship to go a step further and address explicitly the ideologies of intertextual studies. This is a book about readers and reading, just as much as about women and gender, and it is also a study of the intricate and heated negotiations behind the interpretative act.
Veronica Makowsky
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195078664
- eISBN:
- 9780199855117
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195078664.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
As a female writer in the shadow of the cultural nimbus generated by her male peers, and as a transcendentalist in the spirit of Emerson among modernists, Susan Glaspell has suffered from literary ...
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As a female writer in the shadow of the cultural nimbus generated by her male peers, and as a transcendentalist in the spirit of Emerson among modernists, Susan Glaspell has suffered from literary obscurity from the start. An accomplished playwright, and co-founder of the Provincetown Players, Glaspell created self-reliant female heroines in works which were often dismissed as “experimental” by her colleagues. By focusing on the women of Glaspell’s writing and their struggles with the issues of motherhood and social limitation, this book seeks to vindicate Susan Glaspell and to offer her work to the attention of a new generation of readers. At the same time, the author offers a valuable and topical inquiry into the nature of the cultural and political forces that shape our perceptions of literary “greatness” and, ultimately, the canon.Less
As a female writer in the shadow of the cultural nimbus generated by her male peers, and as a transcendentalist in the spirit of Emerson among modernists, Susan Glaspell has suffered from literary obscurity from the start. An accomplished playwright, and co-founder of the Provincetown Players, Glaspell created self-reliant female heroines in works which were often dismissed as “experimental” by her colleagues. By focusing on the women of Glaspell’s writing and their struggles with the issues of motherhood and social limitation, this book seeks to vindicate Susan Glaspell and to offer her work to the attention of a new generation of readers. At the same time, the author offers a valuable and topical inquiry into the nature of the cultural and political forces that shape our perceptions of literary “greatness” and, ultimately, the canon.
Jessica Waldoff
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195151978
- eISBN:
- 9780199870387
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195151978.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
More than any other of Mozart's operas, La finta giardiniera (The Pretend Garden Girl), draws on a culture and an archetype virtually unknown today: the culture is that of sensibility and the ...
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More than any other of Mozart's operas, La finta giardiniera (The Pretend Garden Girl), draws on a culture and an archetype virtually unknown today: the culture is that of sensibility and the archetype that of the giardiniera to which the title refers — the sentimental heroine of Carlo Goldoni's and Niccolò Piccinni's wildly popular La buona figliuola. Both Piccinni's opera and Mozart's belong to a circle of works loosely based on Richardson's sentimental novel Pamela. Giardiniera has often been disparaged for its convoluted and somewhat static plot, but this chapter argues that it needs to be read as Dr. Johnson recommends we read Richardson: “for the sentiment”. Supposed inconsistencies and implausibilities, including mad scenes for the central protagonists, are considered here as opportunities to indulge in feeling, a staple of the sentimental genres.Less
More than any other of Mozart's operas, La finta giardiniera (The Pretend Garden Girl), draws on a culture and an archetype virtually unknown today: the culture is that of sensibility and the archetype that of the giardiniera to which the title refers — the sentimental heroine of Carlo Goldoni's and Niccolò Piccinni's wildly popular La buona figliuola. Both Piccinni's opera and Mozart's belong to a circle of works loosely based on Richardson's sentimental novel Pamela. Giardiniera has often been disparaged for its convoluted and somewhat static plot, but this chapter argues that it needs to be read as Dr. Johnson recommends we read Richardson: “for the sentiment”. Supposed inconsistencies and implausibilities, including mad scenes for the central protagonists, are considered here as opportunities to indulge in feeling, a staple of the sentimental genres.
Jessica Waldoff
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195151978
- eISBN:
- 9780199870387
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195151978.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter considers Fiordiligi's conflicted status as a sentimental heroine. She is a woman of feeling whose affectionate sensibility and natural sympathy for the suffering of others makes her ...
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This chapter considers Fiordiligi's conflicted status as a sentimental heroine. She is a woman of feeling whose affectionate sensibility and natural sympathy for the suffering of others makes her vulnerable to men, placing her virtue “in distress”, but she is also a woman whose moral constancy is eventually overcome by the immediacy of her feelings for another. Fiordiligi's struggle brings into question one of the central tenets of the sentimental culture: that feeling makes its own virtue. Several moments crucial to this characterization are treated, including the trio “È la fede delle femmine”, the sisters' first duet No. 4, the arias “Come scoglio” and “Per pietà”, and the duet with Ferrando “Fra gli amplessi”. The climactic recognition scenes in which feeling triumphs over constancy cannot be easily reconciled with the dénouement that restores both sisters to their original partners.Less
This chapter considers Fiordiligi's conflicted status as a sentimental heroine. She is a woman of feeling whose affectionate sensibility and natural sympathy for the suffering of others makes her vulnerable to men, placing her virtue “in distress”, but she is also a woman whose moral constancy is eventually overcome by the immediacy of her feelings for another. Fiordiligi's struggle brings into question one of the central tenets of the sentimental culture: that feeling makes its own virtue. Several moments crucial to this characterization are treated, including the trio “È la fede delle femmine”, the sisters' first duet No. 4, the arias “Come scoglio” and “Per pietà”, and the duet with Ferrando “Fra gli amplessi”. The climactic recognition scenes in which feeling triumphs over constancy cannot be easily reconciled with the dénouement that restores both sisters to their original partners.
Ann Jefferson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691160658
- eISBN:
- 9781400852598
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691160658.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter considers the links between women and genius in the figure of Mme De Staël's Corinne (from her 1807 of the same name). At the time of its publication women there seemed to be no place ...
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This chapter considers the links between women and genius in the figure of Mme De Staël's Corinne (from her 1807 of the same name). At the time of its publication women there seemed to be no place for women in genius or for genius in women. At the same time, however, the novel, which was traditionally associated with a female readership, was gaining status as a literary genre. Mme de Staël, as one of the rare women commentators on genius, curiously made no explicit attempt to counter the arguments of those who denied genius to her sex and even echoed many of their assumptions. Yet she would eventually come to portray the heroine of her second novel, Corinne, as an unambiguous incarnation of female genius.Less
This chapter considers the links between women and genius in the figure of Mme De Staël's Corinne (from her 1807 of the same name). At the time of its publication women there seemed to be no place for women in genius or for genius in women. At the same time, however, the novel, which was traditionally associated with a female readership, was gaining status as a literary genre. Mme de Staël, as one of the rare women commentators on genius, curiously made no explicit attempt to counter the arguments of those who denied genius to her sex and even echoed many of their assumptions. Yet she would eventually come to portray the heroine of her second novel, Corinne, as an unambiguous incarnation of female genius.
Efrossini Spentzou
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199255689
- eISBN:
- 9780191719608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255689.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter begins with a brief description of the recent increase in studies on Ovid's Heroides. It then discusses the main goal of the book, which is to characterize the feminine voice in the ...
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This chapter begins with a brief description of the recent increase in studies on Ovid's Heroides. It then discusses the main goal of the book, which is to characterize the feminine voice in the male-authored text. An overview of the succeeding chapters is presented.Less
This chapter begins with a brief description of the recent increase in studies on Ovid's Heroides. It then discusses the main goal of the book, which is to characterize the feminine voice in the male-authored text. An overview of the succeeding chapters is presented.
Efrossini Spentzou
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199255689
- eISBN:
- 9780191719608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255689.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter elaborates the main interpretative strategies of the book's approach, arguing for its position within the wider context of the existing scholarship on the Heroides. The first section of ...
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This chapter elaborates the main interpretative strategies of the book's approach, arguing for its position within the wider context of the existing scholarship on the Heroides. The first section of draws a rough map of the main lines of enquiry that have been traced by critics so far. It briefly sketches the passage from the earlier derogatory comments on the heroines' portraits to the more recent interest in the subtle intertextual games played by Ovid in these deeply self-conscious narratives. The remainder of the chapter delineates the main preoccupations of the book' s approach in the light of the insight gained and impasses reached by the previous critical strands.Less
This chapter elaborates the main interpretative strategies of the book's approach, arguing for its position within the wider context of the existing scholarship on the Heroides. The first section of draws a rough map of the main lines of enquiry that have been traced by critics so far. It briefly sketches the passage from the earlier derogatory comments on the heroines' portraits to the more recent interest in the subtle intertextual games played by Ovid in these deeply self-conscious narratives. The remainder of the chapter delineates the main preoccupations of the book' s approach in the light of the insight gained and impasses reached by the previous critical strands.
Efrossini Spentzou
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199255689
- eISBN:
- 9780191719608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255689.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter draws attention to a so-called rhetoric of innocence in the Heroides. In particular, it explores the symbolism of images of idealized happiness which are to be found scattered in the ...
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This chapter draws attention to a so-called rhetoric of innocence in the Heroides. In particular, it explores the symbolism of images of idealized happiness which are to be found scattered in the poems, investing in the collection a drive for emotional and poetical closure. However, writing reigns over the collection: in the course of the chapter, this innocent order will be disturbed and ultimately annulled by the complexities of the heroines' self-reflexive conscience, just as their visions of innocence will be gradually disturbed by their artistic impulse.Less
This chapter draws attention to a so-called rhetoric of innocence in the Heroides. In particular, it explores the symbolism of images of idealized happiness which are to be found scattered in the poems, investing in the collection a drive for emotional and poetical closure. However, writing reigns over the collection: in the course of the chapter, this innocent order will be disturbed and ultimately annulled by the complexities of the heroines' self-reflexive conscience, just as their visions of innocence will be gradually disturbed by their artistic impulse.
Efrossini Spentzou
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199255689
- eISBN:
- 9780191719608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255689.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter is concerned with the heroines' feminine voice. Building on the metapoetic metaphor of the heroines' artistic awakening, it follows their efforts to establish their own discourse and ...
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This chapter is concerned with the heroines' feminine voice. Building on the metapoetic metaphor of the heroines' artistic awakening, it follows their efforts to establish their own discourse and turn themselves from scriptae puellae (‘written girls’) to writing women, whose flowing narrative responds to descriptions of the female nature and creativity from ancient philosophy to modern French feminism. Specific emphasis is given to the symbolic significance of their (in)famous and much derided enclosure, which reveals powerful characteristics of a feminine space and a feminine order.Less
This chapter is concerned with the heroines' feminine voice. Building on the metapoetic metaphor of the heroines' artistic awakening, it follows their efforts to establish their own discourse and turn themselves from scriptae puellae (‘written girls’) to writing women, whose flowing narrative responds to descriptions of the female nature and creativity from ancient philosophy to modern French feminism. Specific emphasis is given to the symbolic significance of their (in)famous and much derided enclosure, which reveals powerful characteristics of a feminine space and a feminine order.
Efrossini Spentzou
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199255689
- eISBN:
- 9780191719608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255689.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter explores the Heroides as short stories. It addresses aspects of brevity that involve more than Quellenforschung; brevity, as envisaged here, works as a catalyst that sets off a complex ...
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This chapter explores the Heroides as short stories. It addresses aspects of brevity that involve more than Quellenforschung; brevity, as envisaged here, works as a catalyst that sets off a complex war of supremacy within the collection. The heroines' short stories reveal the heroines' daring protest against the mega-narratives of the past, but their fervent rhetoric also encompasses their creator.Less
This chapter explores the Heroides as short stories. It addresses aspects of brevity that involve more than Quellenforschung; brevity, as envisaged here, works as a catalyst that sets off a complex war of supremacy within the collection. The heroines' short stories reveal the heroines' daring protest against the mega-narratives of the past, but their fervent rhetoric also encompasses their creator.
Philip Waller
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199541201
- eISBN:
- 9780191717284
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199541201.003.0020
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Florence Barclay was in a different category of best-seller, her work being suffused by her strong Evangelical religious feeling. She was the daughter of one Anglican clergyman and wife to another. ...
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Florence Barclay was in a different category of best-seller, her work being suffused by her strong Evangelical religious feeling. She was the daughter of one Anglican clergyman and wife to another. Music was an additional source of inspiration. How aware she was of the equally strong note of sexual passion running through her stories is a moot point, although she was clear that romantic as well as Christian love was the basis of the perfect marriage, as she believed was personified by the Brownings, whom she idolised. Strikingly, her heroines were much older and plainer than their male lovers; character, which included sporting prowess — an accomplishment they shared with Barclay herself — mattered above physical beauty. Though her detractors derided her apparent naivety and social conformity, in fact she was politically a Liberal and in many respects an assertive and independent-minded woman. Like Garvice, Barclay had her first work published in three-volume format and it failed to take off. Success came to her decades later, in part because of keen marketing by Putnam's in Britain and in the U.S.A., where her novel The Rosary topped the best-seller list in 1910, and where her sister had become a well-known evangelist. Barclay, while enjoying her stature as a Queen of Romance, held back from fully exploiting her celebrity.Less
Florence Barclay was in a different category of best-seller, her work being suffused by her strong Evangelical religious feeling. She was the daughter of one Anglican clergyman and wife to another. Music was an additional source of inspiration. How aware she was of the equally strong note of sexual passion running through her stories is a moot point, although she was clear that romantic as well as Christian love was the basis of the perfect marriage, as she believed was personified by the Brownings, whom she idolised. Strikingly, her heroines were much older and plainer than their male lovers; character, which included sporting prowess — an accomplishment they shared with Barclay herself — mattered above physical beauty. Though her detractors derided her apparent naivety and social conformity, in fact she was politically a Liberal and in many respects an assertive and independent-minded woman. Like Garvice, Barclay had her first work published in three-volume format and it failed to take off. Success came to her decades later, in part because of keen marketing by Putnam's in Britain and in the U.S.A., where her novel The Rosary topped the best-seller list in 1910, and where her sister had become a well-known evangelist. Barclay, while enjoying her stature as a Queen of Romance, held back from fully exploiting her celebrity.
Michèle Lowrie
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199545674
- eISBN:
- 9780191719950
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199545674.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This is the first in a series of chapters on the Augustan literary epistle, where the advantages of writing come to the fore. A brief treatment of Catullus 50 outlines some of the semiotic issues of ...
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This is the first in a series of chapters on the Augustan literary epistle, where the advantages of writing come to the fore. A brief treatment of Catullus 50 outlines some of the semiotic issues of communication in absence as an introduction to the heroine epistles of Propertius and Ovid. Although separation is a source of frustration for all the literal or metaphorical lovers in these poems, their situations provide an occasion for their respective poets to explore the gap between the insufficiency of writing as a medium of communication between lovers and its great advantages for reaching a more general reader. The power of representation, of imagination, as well as concerns that anticipate modern speech act theory are addressed.Less
This is the first in a series of chapters on the Augustan literary epistle, where the advantages of writing come to the fore. A brief treatment of Catullus 50 outlines some of the semiotic issues of communication in absence as an introduction to the heroine epistles of Propertius and Ovid. Although separation is a source of frustration for all the literal or metaphorical lovers in these poems, their situations provide an occasion for their respective poets to explore the gap between the insufficiency of writing as a medium of communication between lovers and its great advantages for reaching a more general reader. The power of representation, of imagination, as well as concerns that anticipate modern speech act theory are addressed.
Antony Augoustakis
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199584413
- eISBN:
- 9780191723117
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199584413.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines ancient views on cosmopolitanism and the intersection of gender and ethnicity in the literature of the Neronian and Flavian periods and interprets them through the lens of Julia ...
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This chapter examines ancient views on cosmopolitanism and the intersection of gender and ethnicity in the literature of the Neronian and Flavian periods and interprets them through the lens of Julia Kristeva's psychoanalytic theories of motherhood and foreign otherness. Kristeva's discussion of the paradoxical status of women as both central but at the same time marginalized applies to the women's presence in the epic poems under discussion, inasmuch as the heroines emerge as both autonomous and idealized but also asymbolic, bacchic/monstrous and therefore abject.Less
This chapter examines ancient views on cosmopolitanism and the intersection of gender and ethnicity in the literature of the Neronian and Flavian periods and interprets them through the lens of Julia Kristeva's psychoanalytic theories of motherhood and foreign otherness. Kristeva's discussion of the paradoxical status of women as both central but at the same time marginalized applies to the women's presence in the epic poems under discussion, inasmuch as the heroines emerge as both autonomous and idealized but also asymbolic, bacchic/monstrous and therefore abject.
Benjamin Sammons
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195375688
- eISBN:
- 9780199871599
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195375688.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines two passages in which characters catalogue women or heroines (Iliad 14.315–28, Odyssey 11.225–329). In the first (Zeus recounts his past erotic conquests), the discussion ...
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This chapter examines two passages in which characters catalogue women or heroines (Iliad 14.315–28, Odyssey 11.225–329). In the first (Zeus recounts his past erotic conquests), the discussion continues to focus on the divine perspective implied in the catalogue form and how it is undermined, in this case through the humor of the whole episode (Dios apate). In the second case (Odysseus’s catalogue of the famous women he saw in Hades) the emphasis is on how the catalogue reflects the hero’s limitations both as a viewer and as a speaker or poet. These catalogues also have a kind of paradigmatic tendency and threaten to impose a pattern or interpretation on the narrative in which they appear; yet in each case, formal or rhetorical properties of the catalogue distort or undermine that tendency. In both cases, the discussion considers whether Homer interacts directly with a Hesiodic tradition of catalogue poetry.Less
This chapter examines two passages in which characters catalogue women or heroines (Iliad 14.315–28, Odyssey 11.225–329). In the first (Zeus recounts his past erotic conquests), the discussion continues to focus on the divine perspective implied in the catalogue form and how it is undermined, in this case through the humor of the whole episode (Dios apate). In the second case (Odysseus’s catalogue of the famous women he saw in Hades) the emphasis is on how the catalogue reflects the hero’s limitations both as a viewer and as a speaker or poet. These catalogues also have a kind of paradigmatic tendency and threaten to impose a pattern or interpretation on the narrative in which they appear; yet in each case, formal or rhetorical properties of the catalogue distort or undermine that tendency. In both cases, the discussion considers whether Homer interacts directly with a Hesiodic tradition of catalogue poetry.
Marina Dahlquist (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037689
- eISBN:
- 9780252094941
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037689.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Exceptionally popular during their time, the spectacular American action film serials of the 1910s featured exciting stunts, film tricks, and effects set against the background of modern technology, ...
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Exceptionally popular during their time, the spectacular American action film serials of the 1910s featured exciting stunts, film tricks, and effects set against the background of modern technology, often starring resourceful female heroines who displayed traditionally male qualities such as endurance, strength, and authority. The most renowned of these “serial queens” was Pearl White, whose career as the adventurous character Pauline developed during a transitional phase in the medium's evolving production strategies, distribution and advertising patterns, and fan culture. This book explores how American serial films starring Pearl White and other female stars affected the emerging cinemas in the United States and abroad. The book investigates the serial genre and its narrative patterns, marketing, cultural reception, and historiographic importance, with chapters on Pearl White's life on and off the screen as well as the “serial queen” genre in Western and Eastern Europe, India, and China.Less
Exceptionally popular during their time, the spectacular American action film serials of the 1910s featured exciting stunts, film tricks, and effects set against the background of modern technology, often starring resourceful female heroines who displayed traditionally male qualities such as endurance, strength, and authority. The most renowned of these “serial queens” was Pearl White, whose career as the adventurous character Pauline developed during a transitional phase in the medium's evolving production strategies, distribution and advertising patterns, and fan culture. This book explores how American serial films starring Pearl White and other female stars affected the emerging cinemas in the United States and abroad. The book investigates the serial genre and its narrative patterns, marketing, cultural reception, and historiographic importance, with chapters on Pearl White's life on and off the screen as well as the “serial queen” genre in Western and Eastern Europe, India, and China.
Caroline Franklin
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112303
- eISBN:
- 9780191670763
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112303.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
Traditionally seen as an archetypal masculine poet, better known for his relationships with women than for the sympathetic study of them, Lord Byron has not lent himself easily to a feminist critique ...
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Traditionally seen as an archetypal masculine poet, better known for his relationships with women than for the sympathetic study of them, Lord Byron has not lent himself easily to a feminist critique hitherto. This book examines Byron within the setting of the contemporary debate on the nature, role, and rights of women in society. The heroines of Byron's narrative and dramatic verse are considered, not from a biographical perspective, but by relating these representations to the ideologies of sexual difference of the poet's day. Viewed in their literary-historical context, these Byronic heroines are compared with other female protagonists of the age, thereby revealing the poet to be honest and bold in his portrayal of female sexuality and its relation to political issues. Drawing upon original research materials, this book presents the poet in context as well as making a contribution to the debate regarding the representation of women in early 19th-century society.Less
Traditionally seen as an archetypal masculine poet, better known for his relationships with women than for the sympathetic study of them, Lord Byron has not lent himself easily to a feminist critique hitherto. This book examines Byron within the setting of the contemporary debate on the nature, role, and rights of women in society. The heroines of Byron's narrative and dramatic verse are considered, not from a biographical perspective, but by relating these representations to the ideologies of sexual difference of the poet's day. Viewed in their literary-historical context, these Byronic heroines are compared with other female protagonists of the age, thereby revealing the poet to be honest and bold in his portrayal of female sexuality and its relation to political issues. Drawing upon original research materials, this book presents the poet in context as well as making a contribution to the debate regarding the representation of women in early 19th-century society.
CLAUDIA TATE
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195108576
- eISBN:
- 9780199855094
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108576.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
The next three chapters deal with several strategies that the black women writers of the post-reconstruction era used to analyze the social affairs of their communities. In this chapter, the ...
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The next three chapters deal with several strategies that the black women writers of the post-reconstruction era used to analyze the social affairs of their communities. In this chapter, the racialized discourse of manhood is analyzed in the books of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and William E. B. Du Bois. On the other hand, the corresponding discourse of womanhood is tackled in the works of Anna Cooper and Gertrude Mossell. With the latter works, domesticity becomes a site of female political negotiation, and the heroine is considered as a self-authorized political agent. In this chapter, black manhood and womanhood are looked at as racial and political signifiers of citizenship. Literary interventionism, the domestic heroine and black bourgeois individuation, and centering the heroine’s virtue are also discussed.Less
The next three chapters deal with several strategies that the black women writers of the post-reconstruction era used to analyze the social affairs of their communities. In this chapter, the racialized discourse of manhood is analyzed in the books of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and William E. B. Du Bois. On the other hand, the corresponding discourse of womanhood is tackled in the works of Anna Cooper and Gertrude Mossell. With the latter works, domesticity becomes a site of female political negotiation, and the heroine is considered as a self-authorized political agent. In this chapter, black manhood and womanhood are looked at as racial and political signifiers of citizenship. Literary interventionism, the domestic heroine and black bourgeois individuation, and centering the heroine’s virtue are also discussed.
CLAUDIA TATE
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195108576
- eISBN:
- 9780199855094
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108576.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter looks at the growing impact of literary realism through the character portrayal of Tillman’s heroines. It also charts the background of the serial heroines in Hopkins’ works from ...
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This chapter looks at the growing impact of literary realism through the character portrayal of Tillman’s heroines. It also charts the background of the serial heroines in Hopkins’ works from domestic happiness to social despair. Racial despair transforms the strategy of racial reform into individual efforts of personal transformation in the serial works of Hopkins. In summary, in this chapter, the heroine’s work is expounded. Moreover, the black heroines, the racial discourse, formula novels, and the test of true love are explicated. The past three chapters gave the author’s argument that the post-reconstruction domestic novels by black women were empathic expressive forces about freedom dreamt of by African Americans. These either transform the dream into a consummation of civil liberty or displace the dream for safekeeping.Less
This chapter looks at the growing impact of literary realism through the character portrayal of Tillman’s heroines. It also charts the background of the serial heroines in Hopkins’ works from domestic happiness to social despair. Racial despair transforms the strategy of racial reform into individual efforts of personal transformation in the serial works of Hopkins. In summary, in this chapter, the heroine’s work is expounded. Moreover, the black heroines, the racial discourse, formula novels, and the test of true love are explicated. The past three chapters gave the author’s argument that the post-reconstruction domestic novels by black women were empathic expressive forces about freedom dreamt of by African Americans. These either transform the dream into a consummation of civil liberty or displace the dream for safekeeping.
Nicola J. Watson
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112976
- eISBN:
- 9780191670893
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112976.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter begins with a survey of the interwoven fates of the letter and the sexually transgressive heroine in radical polemic and fiction from 1790 to 1800, examining the strategies by which ...
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This chapter begins with a survey of the interwoven fates of the letter and the sexually transgressive heroine in radical polemic and fiction from 1790 to 1800, examining the strategies by which radical novelists, including Helen Maria Williams, Eliza Fenwick, Mary Hays, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Charlotte Smith, attempted to appropriate and modify the plot of sensibility provided by La Nouvelle Héloïse to ratify the heroine's self-legitimating revolutionary desire as expressed in letters.Less
This chapter begins with a survey of the interwoven fates of the letter and the sexually transgressive heroine in radical polemic and fiction from 1790 to 1800, examining the strategies by which radical novelists, including Helen Maria Williams, Eliza Fenwick, Mary Hays, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Charlotte Smith, attempted to appropriate and modify the plot of sensibility provided by La Nouvelle Héloïse to ratify the heroine's self-legitimating revolutionary desire as expressed in letters.
Mererid Puw Davies
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199242757
- eISBN:
- 9780191697180
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199242757.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter identifies a sea change in a group of texts from the turn of the last century in which the traditional focus on the heroine is replaced by a focus on Bluebeard, who becomes a tragic ...
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This chapter identifies a sea change in a group of texts from the turn of the last century in which the traditional focus on the heroine is replaced by a focus on Bluebeard, who becomes a tragic hero, a Don Juan, and an Übermensch who subjects his women to unprecedented savagery. It argues that this new interest in physical violence appears to indicate a return to the Bluebeard tradition pre-dating Marlitt's purely psychological tale of suspense. In fact, however, the psychological emphasis in these texts is more intense than ever, since the authors are extremely interested in Bluebeard's autistic and frightened subjectivity as the source of violence. It seems that these texts are, even more than Marlitt's, centrally interested in the subject of civilization as represented by Bluebeard. In the modernist period, that subject undergoes tremendous pressure which forces him to reveal his weaknesses and fissures. In other words, the crises of modernity reveal fundamental contradictions and flaws in the civilized subject and indeed, the very project of civilization, and so in these cases the subject of civilization responds with desperate, gendered violence. This serial violence can only be halted by the destruction of Bluebeard, the civilized subject, himself. And in these texts, the utopian force of the material seems at last to have quite disappeared.Less
This chapter identifies a sea change in a group of texts from the turn of the last century in which the traditional focus on the heroine is replaced by a focus on Bluebeard, who becomes a tragic hero, a Don Juan, and an Übermensch who subjects his women to unprecedented savagery. It argues that this new interest in physical violence appears to indicate a return to the Bluebeard tradition pre-dating Marlitt's purely psychological tale of suspense. In fact, however, the psychological emphasis in these texts is more intense than ever, since the authors are extremely interested in Bluebeard's autistic and frightened subjectivity as the source of violence. It seems that these texts are, even more than Marlitt's, centrally interested in the subject of civilization as represented by Bluebeard. In the modernist period, that subject undergoes tremendous pressure which forces him to reveal his weaknesses and fissures. In other words, the crises of modernity reveal fundamental contradictions and flaws in the civilized subject and indeed, the very project of civilization, and so in these cases the subject of civilization responds with desperate, gendered violence. This serial violence can only be halted by the destruction of Bluebeard, the civilized subject, himself. And in these texts, the utopian force of the material seems at last to have quite disappeared.
