Scenes of reading
Subtitle: transforming romance in Brontë, Eliot, and Woolf
By: Nancy Cervetti.
Series: Writing about women,; vol. 24
Publisher: P. Lang
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 173
Subjects: Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855 -- Characters -- Women.; Eliot, George, 1819-1880 -- Characters -- Women.; Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941 -- Characters -- Women.; English fiction -- Women authors -- History and criticism.; Women and literature -- England -- History -- 19th century.; Women and literature -- England -- History -- 19th century.; English fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism.; Books and reading in literature.; Women in literature.
Description: This book combines biography, literature, and cultural and feminist theory to examine the radical critiques of patriarchy performed by Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf in Jane Eyre, Villette, The Mill on the Floss, The Voyage Out, and Orlando.

The book's focus is how these novels revise the romance plot, abandoning this ancient and very political story line and creating in its place a much larger imaginary field in which female heroines as well as their readers can consider and experiment with other possibilities.

Strikingly different from the swooning beauties of traditional romance, Jane Eyre, Lucy Snowe, Maggie Tulliver, Rachel Vinrace, and Orlando share a love of language and desire for intellectual expression that takes precedence over marriage and motherhood.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [161]-169) and index.