Romantic Women Writers and Arthurian Legend [electronic resource] : The Quest for Knowledge /
Garner, Katie.author.
This book reveals the breadth and depth of women's engagements with Arthurian romance in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Tracing the variety of women's responses to the medieval revival through Gothic literature, travel writing, scholarship, and decorative gift books, it argues that differences in the kinds of Arthurian materials read by and prepared for women produced a distinct female tradition in Arthurian writing. Examining the Arthurian interests of the best-selling female poets of the day, Felicia Hemans and Letitia Elizabeth Landon, and uncovering those of many of their contemporaries, the Arthurian myth in the Romantic period is a vibrant location for debates about the function of romance, the role of the imagination, and women's place in literary history. .
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Introduction -- 2. Arthuriana for the 'Fair Sex': Gender politics and the reception of romance -- 3. Haunting Beginnings: Women's Gothic Verse and King Arthur -- 4. Next Steps: Exploring the Arthurian Past in Women's Travel and Topographical Writing -- 5. The Rise of the Female Arthurianist: Satire and Scholarship -- 6. A Fashionable Fantasy: Arthur in the Annuals -- 7. Afterword.
This book reveals the breadth and depth of women's engagements with Arthurian romance in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Tracing the variety of women's responses to the medieval revival through Gothic literature, travel writing, scholarship, and decorative gift books, it argues that differences in the kinds of Arthurian materials read by and prepared for women produced a distinct female tradition in Arthurian writing. Examining the Arthurian interests of the best-selling female poets of the day, Felicia Hemans and Letitia Elizabeth Landon, and uncovering those of many of their contemporaries, the Arthurian myth in the Romantic period is a vibrant location for debates about the function of romance, the role of the imagination, and women's place in literary history. .
Literature, Modern-19th century.
British literature.
Fiction.
Literature-History and criticism.
Nineteenth-Century Literature.
British and Irish Literature.
Fiction.
Literary History.