The Woman Reader, 1837-1914

The Woman Reader, 1837-1914
Author: Kate Flint
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 366
Release: 1995
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780198121855

This book is an original and fascinating look at the topos of the woman reader and its functioning in cultural debate between the accession of Queen Victoria and the First World War. The issue of women and reading--what they should read; what they should be protected from; how, what, and when they should read--was the focus of lively discussion in the nineteenth century in a wide range of media. Flint uses recent feminist analyses of how women read as a context for her detailed and readable study of these debates, exploring in a variety of texts--from magazines like Woman's World and My Lady's Novelette to works of literature like Jane Eyre and The Portrait of a Lady--the range of stereotypes and directives addressed to women readers, and their influence on the writing of fiction. She also looks at how women readers of all classes understood their own reading experiences.

The Woman Reader

The Woman Reader
Author: Belinda Jack
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2012-07-17
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0300120451

Explores what and how women of widely differing cultures have read through the ages, from Cro-Magnon caves to the digital readers of today, drawing distinctions between male and female readers and detailing how female literacy has been suppressed in some parts of the world.

Women, Reading, and the Cultural Politics of Early Modern England

Women, Reading, and the Cultural Politics of Early Modern England
Author: Edith Snook
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351871498

A study of the representation of reading in early modern Englishwomen's writing, this book exists at the intersection of textual criticism and cultural history. It looks at depictions of reading in devotional works, maternal advice books, poetry, fiction, and manuscripts for evidence of ways in which women conceived of reading in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England. Among the texts considered are Katherine Parr, Lamentation of a Sinner; Anne Askew, The Examinations of Anne Askew; Dorothy Leigh, The Mothers Blessing; Elizabeth Grymeston, Miscelanea Meditations Memoratives; Anne Cornwallis's commonplace book (Folger MS V.a.89); Aemelia Lanyer, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum; The Death and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Bodleian MS Don.e.17), and Mary Wroth, The First Part of The Countess of Montgomery's Urania.

Edinburgh History of Reading

Edinburgh History of Reading
Author: Rose Jonathan Rose
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2020-07-09
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1474461905

Reveals the experience of reading in many cultures and across the agesShows the experiences of ordinary readers in Scotland, Australasia, Russia, and ChinaExplores how digital media has transformed literary criticismPortrays everyday reading in art Includes reading across national and cultural linesCommon Readers casts a fascinating light on the literary experiences of ordinary people: miners in Scotland, churchgoers in Victorian London, workers in Czarist Russia, schoolgirls in rural Australia, farmers in Republican China, and forward to today's online book discussion groups. Chapters in this volume explore what they read, and how books changed their lives.

Italian Women Writers

Italian Women Writers
Author: Katharine Mitchell
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2014-05-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1442665645

Post-Unification Italy saw an unprecedented rise of the middle classes, an expansion in the production of print culture, and increased access to education and professions for women, particularly in urban areas. Although there was still widespread illiteracy, especially among women in both rural and urban areas, there emerged a generation of women writers whose domestic fiction and journalism addressed a growing female readership. This study looks at the work of three of the most significant women writers of the period: La Marchesa Colombi, Neera, and Matilde Serao. These writers, whose works had been largely forgotten for much of the last century, only to be rediscovered by the Italian feminist movement of the 1970s, were widely read and received considerable critical acclaim in their day. In their realist fiction and journalism, these professional women writers documented and brought to light the ways in which women participated in everyday life in the newly independent Italy, and how their experiences differed profoundly from those of men. Katharine Mitchell shows how these three authors, while hardly radical emancipationists, offered late-nineteenth-century readers an implicit feminist intervention and a legitimate means of approaching and engaging with the burning social and political issues of the day regarding “the woman question” – women’s access to education and the professions, legal rights, and suffrage. Through close examinations of these authors and a selection of their works – and with reference to their broader artistic, socio-historical, and geo-political contexts – Mitchell not only draws attention to their authentic representations of contemporary social and historical realities, but also considers their important role as a cultural medium and catalyst for social change.

Educating the Proper Woman Reader

Educating the Proper Woman Reader
Author: Jennifer Phegley
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2004
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 081420967X

Her analysis of images of influential women readers (in Harper's), intellectual women readers (in The Cornhill), independent women readers (in Belgravia), and proto-feminist women readers/critics (in Victoria) indicates that women played a significant role in determining the boundaries of literary culture within these magazines.

A New Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture

A New Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture
Author: Herbert F. Tucker
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 586
Release: 2014-02-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1118624483

A NEW COMPANION TO VICTORIAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE The Victorian period was a time of rapid cultural change, which resulted in a huge and varied literary output. A New Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture offers experienced guidance to the literature of nineteenth-century Britain and its social and historical context. This revised and expanded edition comprises contributions from over 30 leading scholars who, approaching the Victorian epoch from different positions and traditions, delve into the unruly complexities of the Victorian imagination. Divided into five parts, this new Companion surveys seven decades of history before examining the key phases in a Victorian life, the leading professions and walks of life, the major literary genres, the way Victorians defined their persons, homes, and national identity, and how recent “neo-Victorian” developments in contemporary culture reconfigure the sense we make of the past today. Important topics such as sexuality, denominational faith, social class, and global empire inform each chapter’s approach. Each chapter provides a comprehensive bibliography of established and emerging scholarship.

She Hath Been Reading

She Hath Been Reading
Author: Katherine West Scheil
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2012-05-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0801464692

In the late nineteenth century hundreds of clubs formed across the United States devoted to the reading of Shakespeare. From Pasadena, California, to the seaside town of Camden, Maine; from the isolated farm town of Ottumwa, Iowa, to Mobile, Alabama, on the Gulf coast, Americans were reading Shakespeare in astonishing numbers and in surprising places. Composed mainly of women, these clubs offered the opportunity for members not only to read and study Shakespeare but also to participate in public and civic activities outside the home. In She Hath Been Reading, Katherine West Scheil uncovers this hidden layer of intellectual activity that flourished in American society well into the twentieth century. Shakespeare clubs were crucial for women’s intellectual development because they provided a consistent intellectual stimulus (more so than was the case with most general women’s clubs) and because women discovered a world of possibilities, both public and private, inspired by their reading of Shakespeare. Indeed, gathering to read and discuss Shakespeare often led women to actively improve their lot in life and make their society a better place. Many clubs took action on larger social issues such as women’s suffrage, philanthropy, and civil rights. At the same time, these efforts served to embed Shakespeare into American culture as a marker for learning, self-improvement, civilization, and entertainment for a broad array of populations, varying in age, race, location, and social standing. Based on extensive research in the archives of the Folger Shakespeare Library and in dozens of local archives and private collections across America, She Hath Been Reading shows the important role that literature can play in the lives of ordinary people. As testament to this fact, the book includes an appendix listing more than five hundred Shakespeare clubs across America.

Readers and Reading

Readers and Reading
Author: Andrew Bennett
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2014-07-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317893891

Much literary criticism focuses on literary producers and their products, but an important part of such work considers the end-user, the reader. It asks such questions as: how far can the author condition the response of the reader, and how much does the reader create the meaning of a text? Dr Bennett's collection includes important essays from such writers and critics as Wolfgang Iser, Mary Jacobus, Roger Chartier, Michel de Certeau, Shoshana Felman, Maurice Blanchot, Paul de Man and Yves Bonnefoy. It looks in turn at deconstructionist, feminist, new historicist and psychoanalytical response to the school. The book then considers the act of reading itself, discussing such issues as the uniqueness of any reading and the difficulties involved in its analysis.