Borderlines : The Shiftings of Gender in British Romanticism / Susan J. Wolfson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wolfson, Susan J., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sex role in literature.

English literature.

Romanticism.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (456 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2006.

Summary:

Opening with the revolution-era debates of the 1790s, Borderlines reads Romantic genders across a mobile syntax, tuned to such figures as the stylized "feminine" poetess, the aberrant "masculine" woman, male poets deemed "feminine" or "unmanly," the campy male "effeminate," and hapless or strategic cross-dressers of both sexes. With fresh readings of the works, careers, and volatile receptions of Mary Wollstonecraft, Felicia Hemans, M. J. Jewsbury, Lord Byron, and John Keats, Susan Wolfson shows how senses (and sensations) of gender shape and get shaped by sign systems that prove arbitrary, fluid, and susceptible of lively transformation.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

List of Illustrations

Chapter One On the Borderlines of Gendered Language

Two Women

Chapter Two Felicia Hemans and the Stages of “The Feminine”

Chapter Three The Generations of “Masculine” Woman

Chapter Four Woman’s Life and “Masculine” Energy: The History of Maria Jane Jewsbury

Two Men

Chapter Five Lord Byron, Sardanapalus, and “Effeminate Character”

Chapter Six Gender as Cross-Dressing in Don Juan: Men & Women / Male & Female / Masculine & Feminine

Chapter Seven Keats and Gender Acts: “Had I Man’s Fair Form”

Chapter Eight Gendering Keats: “The Character Undecided, the Way of Life Uncertain”

Body and Soul

Chapter Nine Sex in Souls?

Texts

Abbreviations

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Description based on: online resource; title from PDF information screen (De Gruyter, viewed November 29, 2022).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-5036-2566-4

OCLC:

1312726265