Women writing the neo-Victorian novel : erotic "Victorians" / Kathleen Renk.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Renk, Kathleen J., 1952- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English fiction--Women authors--History and criticism.

English fiction.

English fiction--Women authors.

English fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

English fiction--21st century--History and criticism.

Literature and history--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Literature and history.

Erotic literature, English.

Women authors.

History.

Great Britain.

Literature and history--Great Britain--History--21st century.

Erotic literature, English--Women authors--History and criticism.

Physical Description:

xi, 199 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Cham, Switzerland : Palgrave Macmillan, [2020]

Summary:

Women Writing the Neo-Victorian Novel: Erotic "Victorians" focuses on the work of British, Irish, and Commonwealth women writers, such as A.S. Byatt, Emma Donoghue, Sarah Waters, Helen Humphreys, Margaret Atwood, and Ahdaf Soueif, among others, and their attempts to re-envision the erotic. Kathleen Renks study analyzes the phenomenon of neo-Victorian fiction and its relationship to contemporary culture, specifically focusing on women writers and the ways in which the erotic is conceived in neo-Victorian fiction, and how this re-conception relates to the interests of contemporary feminism. Renk argues that in their re-envisioning of the Victorian novel, these women writers highlight classical concepts of erôs, and, in addition, they gravitate toward Audre Lordes idea that the erotic is not "plasticized sensation" but is "the lifeforce of women, [it is] creative energy empowered.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction: "Erotic `Victorians': Women, Neo-Victorian Fiction, and Creative Eros"

The Novel "Reforming" Woman's World

Eros, the "Phantasm," and Platonic Love in Byatt's Possession

Creative Eros

2. "The Female Artist's Erotic Gaze in Neo-Victorian Fiction"

The Gaze

Victorian Photography

Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists and Julia Margaret Cameron

Afterimage: Re-imagining the Pre-Raphaelite Vision

"Breaking the Sequence; Breaking the Sentence": Re-envisioning Ophelia and Seizing Sappho

Visionary Luminescence in Sixty Lights

3. Eros and the Woman Writer: Conversing with the Spirits of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Charlotte Bronte, and E. Nesbit

Aurora Leigh and the "Woman Question"

Marriage, Mothering, Writing, and Overcoming Male Influence

The Monstrous Feminine

Sexual Eros and Creativity

The Lesbian continuum

4. Female Rogues and Gender Outlaws in the Neo-Victorian Novel

Slammerkin: Fashioning the Self

Alias Grace: Mary Whitney the Rogue

Fingersmith and Roguish Freedom

Gender Outlaws: Tipping the Velvet and Frog Music

5. "In Other Dark Rooms: Eros and the Woman Spiritualist"

Affinity and Confinement

Two Versions of the Spiritualist Medium Florence Cook

Selene of the Spirits: Hearing Spirit Voices

Roberts's In the Red Kitchen

The Conjugial Angel"

6. "Voyages Out: Postcolonial Desires and the Female Victorian Traveler/Adventurer"

Voyaging Out: Women and Travel

Egyptian Sojourners: Lady Lucie Duff Gordon and the Victorian Artist John Frederick Lewis

"Going Native" in The Mistress of Nothing

Sartorial Choices, Cross-Dressing, and Identity in The Map of Love

A Female World of Habitation: The Harem

A New World of Habitation in The Mistress of Nothing

7. Conclusion: Drawing a New Map of Love.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

3030482863

9783030482862

OCLC:

1152489672