Representing Femininity: Middle-Class Subjectivity in Victorian and Edwardian Women's Autobiographies - Hardcover
This book analyzes the relationship between women's experience and the social institutions and cultural forms in which that experience is publicly represented. Challenging the assumption that middle-class women were confined solely to domesticity, Corbett examines the rhetorical strategies of self-representation by women who participated in public life. She discusses autobiographies by religious women writers, secular writers, Victorian actresses, and suffragettes, engaging some of the central issues in feminist criticism and politics while opening to view a broad range of self-representation that has been unduly slighted in feminist historical, cultural, and literary analysis.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Mary Jean Corbett, Assistant Professor of English, Miami University of Ohio.
Review:
"An important and often fascinating study."--English Literature in Transition
"Fascinating both because of its primary material and because of the theoretical claims Corbett makes about that material."--Studies in English Literature
"So many subjects, or 'subjectivities,' crowd this absorbing narrative that it may be hard to conceive how tightly and even suspensefully built it is....[Corbett] both challenges and reconciles feminist revisionists lately torn between 'sexual' essentialism and 'gender'
artificialism."--Choice
"In a theoretical climate which questions the very genre of autobiography as a legitimate category of analysis, Mary Jean Corbett offers a powerful argument against such a claim....Corbett's book challenges scholars from all disciplines to look into the full range of feminine discourses and to
redefine the categories of analysis."--Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies
"The primary strengths of Corbett's study are its introduction of entirely new material to the discussion of women's autobiography and its thoughtful commentary on the tensions women autobiographers felt in negotiating public/private, domestic/professional aspects of their lives. Corbett has
done impressive research on the written lives of professional authors, actresses, and suffragettes, and she brings that research to bear tellingly on the difficult question of feminine self-representation. This is a book that will be welcomed by feminist critics and those interested in autobiography
as a genre."--Linda Peterson, Yale University
"A very welcome addition to the expanding feminist literature on women's autobiographical writing....Representing Femininity, with its exemplary subtlety and commitment, is a study of considerable importance."--ANQ
"A readable and scholarly book, showing an informed assimilation of the work of recent feminists, New Historians, and post-structuralists as well as more old-fashioned Marxist critics and social historians. As a literary study it combines sensitive close reading of individual texts with
stimulating cross-references and textual groupings. It raises interesting questions about the definition of public and private spheres and relations between them. It enriches the current lively critical discussion of women's autobiography and joins the expanding bibliography on this important
subject."--Journal of English and Germanic Philology
"Corbett's well-researched and carefully contextualized analysis deserves rich praise....A compelling work of scholarship that further enriches an already lively scholarly debate."--Victorian Studies
"This book offers intelligent readings of familiar examples of the genre, such as Harriet Martineau's Autobiography, and some fascinating discussions of less well known texts....I am not sure I can suggest any other that might have worked better for this splendid combination of historical
research, political analysis, and alertness to the text."--Modern Philology
"Fascinating both because of its primary material and because of the theoretical claims Corbett makes about that material."--Studies in English Literature
"So many subjects, or 'subjectivities,' crowd this absorbing narrative that it may be hard to conceive how tightly and even suspensefully built it is....[Corbett] both challenges and reconciles feminist revisionists lately torn between 'sexual' essentialism and 'gender'
artificialism."--Choice
"In a theoretical climate which questions the very genre of autobiography as a legitimate category of analysis, Mary Jean Corbett offers a powerful argument against such a claim....Corbett's book challenges scholars from all disciplines to look into the full range of feminine discourses and to
redefine the categories of analysis."--Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies
"The primary strengths of Corbett's study are its introduction of entirely new material to the discussion of women's autobiography and its thoughtful commentary on the tensions women autobiographers felt in negotiating public/private, domestic/professional aspects of their lives. Corbett has
done impressive research on the written lives of professional authors, actresses, and suffragettes, and she brings that research to bear tellingly on the difficult question of feminine self-representation. This is a book that will be welcomed by feminist critics and those interested in autobiography
as a genre."--Linda Peterson, Yale University
"A very welcome addition to the expanding feminist literature on women's autobiographical writing....Representing Femininity, with its exemplary subtlety and commitment, is a study of considerable importance."--ANQ
"A readable and scholarly book, showing an informed assimilation of the work of recent feminists, New Historians, and post-structuralists as well as more old-fashioned Marxist critics and social historians. As a literary study it combines sensitive close reading of individual texts with
stimulating cross-references and textual groupings. It raises interesting questions about the definition of public and private spheres and relations between them. It enriches the current lively critical discussion of women's autobiography and joins the expanding bibliography on this important
subject."--Journal of English and Germanic Philology
"Corbett's well-researched and carefully contextualized analysis deserves rich praise....A compelling work of scholarship that further enriches an already lively scholarly debate."--Victorian Studies
"This book offers intelligent readings of familiar examples of the genre, such as Harriet Martineau's Autobiography, and some fascinating discussions of less well known texts....I am not sure I can suggest any other that might have worked better for this splendid combination of historical
research, political analysis, and alertness to the text."--Modern Philology
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherOxford University Press
- Publication date1992
- ISBN 10 0195068580
- ISBN 13 9780195068580
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages256
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Representing Femininity : Middle-Class Subjectivity in Victorian and Edwardian Women's Autobiographies
Published by
Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford
(1992)
ISBN 10: 0195068580
ISBN 13: 9780195068580
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. First Printing of the First Edition. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. A gorgeous, pristine copy. New condition in a New dust jacket. NO chips. NO tears. NO creases. Bright, shiny, clean, square, and tight. Sharp corners. NO owner's name or bookplate. NO remainder mark. Fresh and crisp -- obviously never read. NO underlining. NO highlighting. NO margin notes. Hardcover. First printing with complete number row (135798642) on the copyright page. A study of autobiographies by religious women writers, secular writers, Victorian actresses, and suffragettes. List of chapter notes/sources. Bibliography. Index. Bound in the original blue cloth, lettered in shiny silver on the spine. From the Dust Jacket: "Corbett's study explores the relationship between women's experience and the social institutions and cultural forms in which that experience is publicly represented. Challenging the assumption that middle-class Victorian and Edwardian women were confined solely to domesticity, Corbett examines the rhetorical strategies of self-representation by women who participated in public life. Considering works by autobiographers of the suffrage movement, Corbett shows how feminist activists used their texts to critique the dominant model of bourgeois individualism in both political and autobiographical terms. [S]he opens to view a broad range of self-representation by women that have been unduly slighted in feminist historical, cultural, and literary analysis." Keywords: Harriet Martineau; Mary Howitt; Anne Thackeray Ritchie; suffrage movement; feminists; feminism; women's studies. First Printing of the First Edition. Hardcover. New/New. 8vo. vi, 240pp. Seller Inventory # 015610
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