Writing for immortality
Subtitle: women and the emergence of high literary culture in America
By: Anne E. Boyd.
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Baltimore
Language: eng
Number of pages: 305
Subjects: Alcott, Louisa May, 1832-1888 -- Criticism and interpretation; Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, 1844-1911 -- Criticism and interpretation; Stoddard, Elizabeth, 1823-1902 -- Criticism and interpretation; Woolson, Constance Fenimore, 1840-1894 -- Criticism and interpretation; American literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism; Women and literature -- United States -- History -- 19th century; American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Canon (Literature); United States -- Intellectual life -- 1865-1918
Description: "Writing for Immortality studies the lives and works of four nineteenth-century American women who sought recognition as serious literary artists: Louisa May Alcott, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Elizabeth Stoddard, and Constance Fenimore Woolson. Combining literary criticism and cultural history, Anne E. Boyd examines how these authors challenged the masculine connotation of "artist" and struggled to place themselves in the literary pantheon. Redrawing the boundaries between male and female literary spheres and between American and British literary traditions, Boyd shows how these writers rejected the didacticism of the previous generation of women authors and instead drew their inspiration from the most accomplished "literary" figures of their day: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry James, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and George Eliot." "Placing the works and experiences of Alcott, Phelps, Stoddard, and Woolson within contemporary discussions about genius and the American artist, Boyd reaches a sobering conclusion. Although the democratic ideals implicit in such concepts encouraged these women, they nonetheless faced lingering prejudices."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [287]-294) and index.
Originally presented as author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Purdue University.