Romance and readership in twentieth century France
By: Diana Holmes.
Series: Oxford studies in modern European culture
Publisher: New York
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Oxford University Press
Language: eng
Number of pages: 154
ISBN-13: 9780199249848
Subjects: French fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism; French fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Romance fiction -- France -- History and criticism; Books and reading -- France -- History -- 20th century; Books and reading -- France -- History -- 19th century
Description: "Romance in modern times is the most widely read yet the most critically despised of genres. Associated almost entirely with women, as readers and as writers, its popularity has been argued by gender traditionalists to confirm women's innate sentimentality, while feminist critics have often condemned the genre as a dangerous opiate for the female masses." "Romance and Readership in Twentieth-Century France adopts the more positive perspective of critics such as Janice Radway, and takes seriously the pleasure that women readers consistently seem to find in romance. Drawing on the social constructionist feminism of Simone de Beauvoir, the psychoanalytical theories of Jessica Benjamin, and a range of social theorists from Bourdieu to Zygmunt Bauman, the book uncovers the history of romantic fiction in France from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century, and explores its place in women's lives and imaginations."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [143]-151) and index.
Table of contents: title: A feminine genre, romance and women; title: Passion, piety, and the new woman: romantic fiction at the Belle Epoque; title: Reaction and resistance, romance in the 1930's and under the Occupation; title: Love in a brave new world, romance in the 1950's; title: Romance after feminism; title: Love in a postmodern age, contemporary romance in France.