Tabitha Sparks
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781526123503
- eISBN:
- 9781526141972
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526123503.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter looks beyond bio-critical interpretations of Harkness and her work to address the ‘subject’ Margaret Harkness, and specifically her relationship with her pseudonym, ‘John Law’. Although ...
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This chapter looks beyond bio-critical interpretations of Harkness and her work to address the ‘subject’ Margaret Harkness, and specifically her relationship with her pseudonym, ‘John Law’. Although female authors’ use of male pseudonyms was not uncommon in the nineteenth century, the chapter argues that, for Harkness, it constitutes a rejection of personalised character analysis: ‘John Law’, it suggests, signifies ‘not Margaret Harkness’. This rejection of psychologisation applies both to Harkness’s authorial identity and to her representation of working-class life and characters, as the chapter shows by placing Harkness’s work in a tradition of individualisation and psychological portraiture of working-class characters in the nineteenth century. It argues that Harkness’s work is rendered distinct by the fact that her characters cannot use subjective means to challenge their material experience.Less
This chapter looks beyond bio-critical interpretations of Harkness and her work to address the ‘subject’ Margaret Harkness, and specifically her relationship with her pseudonym, ‘John Law’. Although female authors’ use of male pseudonyms was not uncommon in the nineteenth century, the chapter argues that, for Harkness, it constitutes a rejection of personalised character analysis: ‘John Law’, it suggests, signifies ‘not Margaret Harkness’. This rejection of psychologisation applies both to Harkness’s authorial identity and to her representation of working-class life and characters, as the chapter shows by placing Harkness’s work in a tradition of individualisation and psychological portraiture of working-class characters in the nineteenth century. It argues that Harkness’s work is rendered distinct by the fact that her characters cannot use subjective means to challenge their material experience.
Brian Dolinar
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617032691
- eISBN:
- 9781617032707
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617032691.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter demonstrates how the Simple Stories came from Langston Hughes’s desire to create a working-class character for a working-class audience. In a 1945 article for Phylon magazine titled ...
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This chapter demonstrates how the Simple Stories came from Langston Hughes’s desire to create a working-class character for a working-class audience. In a 1945 article for Phylon magazine titled “Simple and Me,” Hughes explained the origins of his popular creation. According to him, Simple grew from a conversation he had been having for many years of “myself talking to me” or “me talking to myself,” but which had taken place in many forms, “from poetry to prose, song lyrics to radio, newspaper columns to books.” Few scholars have fully addressed the many literary modes in which Hughes operated.Less
This chapter demonstrates how the Simple Stories came from Langston Hughes’s desire to create a working-class character for a working-class audience. In a 1945 article for Phylon magazine titled “Simple and Me,” Hughes explained the origins of his popular creation. According to him, Simple grew from a conversation he had been having for many years of “myself talking to me” or “me talking to myself,” but which had taken place in many forms, “from poetry to prose, song lyrics to radio, newspaper columns to books.” Few scholars have fully addressed the many literary modes in which Hughes operated.
