Ouida the phenomenon
Subtitle: evolving social, political, and gender concerns in her fiction
By: Natalie Schroeder and Shari Hodges Holt.
Contributors: Holt, Shari Hodges, 1964-
Publisher: University of Delaware Press; Associated University Presses
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Newark; Cranbury, NJ
Language: eng
Number of pages: 283
ISBN-13: 9780874130331
Subjects: Ouida, -- 1839-1908 -- Criticism and interpretation; Ouida, -- 1839-1908 -- Political and social views; Literature and society -- England -- History -- 19th century; Politics and literature -- England -- History -- 19th century; Sex role in literature
Description: "This first full-length study of the works of best-selling Victorian novelist Ouida (pen name for Marie Louise Rame) examines the evolution of social, political, and gender issues in Ouida's fiction from her "high society" romances of the 1860s to her satirical exposes of contemporary society in the 1880s and 1890s." "This study places Ouida in the context of nineteenth-century debates over gender by exploring the contradictions between the vehement critiques of marriage in her fiction and the equally vehement anti-feminist sentiments of her journalism. Examining Ouida's revision of gender stereotypes such as the domestic angel, the adventuress, and the dandy, Schroeder and Holt establish Ouida as a significant predecessor of the 1890s New Woman."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: a miracle of modern literature; title: Dandies, angels, and adventuresses; title: Ouida in transition: "romanticist pure et simple" and champion of the oppressed; title: Ouida's tragic vision: materialism, commodification, and the artist; title: Male predators, female victims, and the plight of the female artist: "the glory disk of females is only a crown of thorns"; title: Love, pity, and indictment: the poetics and politics of the Italian novels; title: Subversion and submission to male power in Ouida's female gothic; title: European novels of society: fantasies of female empowerment; title: Marriage and the Ouidean new woman: the bondage of domestic monotony; title: The fin de siècle: the age of "decadence".