The literary mother : essays on representations of maternity and child care / edited by Susan C. Staub.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Staub, Susan C.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mothers in literature.

English literature--History and criticism.

English literature.

American literature--History and criticism.

American literature.

Motherhood in literature.

Mother and child in literature.

Physical Description:

vi, 267 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland & Co., [2007]

Summary:

"The book looks at motherhood, also social and cultural dictates. Works examined include William Shakespeare's Venus; Daniel Defoe's Roxana; Charles Dickens' Dombey and Son; Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the life of a slave girl; John Steinbeck's The grapes of wrath; Dorothy Leigh's The mother's blessing; and W.S. Penn's Killing time with strangers, among others"--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Section I Social and Cultural Negotiations

1 "My throbbing heart shall rock you day and night": Shakespeare's Venus, Elizabeth, and Early Modern Constructions of Motherhood / Susan C. Staub 15

2 The "Unnatural" Mother-Daughter Relationship in Daniel Defoe's Roxana / Rebecca Shapiro 33

3 Of Home-Makers and Home-Breakers: The Deserving and the Undeserving Poor Mother in Depression Era Literature / Vivyan C. Adair 48

4 The Construction of Maternity in Southern Literature: Southern Ladies, Southern Mothers, Southern Mammies, and Maternal Sexuality / Mary M. Bendel-Simso 69

Section II Negotiating Absence

5 The Absent Mother: Negotiations of Maternal Presence in the Gothic Mode / Ruth Bienstock Anolik 95

6 "The Instinct of Nature Spoke Audibly": Representations of the Mother-Child Bond in Mary Shelley's Fiction / Sharon L. Joffe 117

7 The Contested Site of Maternity in Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son / Melisa Klimaszewski 138

Section III Negotiating Power

8 Dorothy Leigh's The Mother's Blessing and the Political Maternal Voice in Seventeenth-Century England / Edith Snook 161

9 "I, the Mother": Inscribing Maternal Right in Early Modern Mothers' Elegies / Donna J. Long 185

10 The Ethos of Motherhood and Harriet Jacobs' Vision of Racial Equality in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl / Grace McEntee 200

11 What to Do About Motherhood: Feminist Theory and Feminist Fiction Negotiate Motherhood's Dilemmas / Joyce Shaw Peterson 224

12 Ceremony and Power: The Significance of the Mother in Killing Time with Strangers / Tammy Wahpeconiah 245.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780786430468

078643046X

OCLC:

122424049