Matched pairs
Subtitle: gender and intertextual dialogue in eighteenth-century fiction
By: Joseph F. Bartolomeo.
Publisher: University of Delaware Press; Associated University Presses
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Newark; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 242
Subjects: English fiction -- 18th century -- History and criticism.; Women and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century.; English fiction -- Women authors -- History and criticism.; English fiction -- Male authors -- History and criticism.; Authorship -- Sex differences.; Sex role in literature.; Women in literature.; Men in literature.; Intertextuality.
Description: "This study attempts to integrate women writers with their male counterparts, specifically by pairing individual novels by women with those by men and exploring multiple dimensions and implications of intertextuality across gender lines during the formative century of novel-writing in England.

Such a method results in describing, analyzing, and elevating early women novelists' achievements in different but no less crucial ways than purely feminocentric approaches have done, and in demonstrating how fiction by men was inspired, shaped, imitated, or criticized by women.".

"Close reading of the texts is complemented by broader historical and critical perspectives. Bartolomeo supports the case for cross-gender comparison by pointing to precedents in eighteenth-century critical discourse on the novel from both men and women.

The study concludes by relating differences among the dialogues to the "horizon of expectation" faced by novelists of different genders at different times, and by considering how the women novelists' engagement in various forms with male authors required a posture combining self-assertion and self-effacement."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 220-233) and index.