Feminist Readings of Edith Wharton: From Silence to Speech (American Literature Readings in the Twenty-First Century) - Hardcover

Chambers, Dianne L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0230617654 ISBN 13: 9780230617650

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009

Synopsis

In this intriguing new volume, Dianne L. Chambers covers new ground on the life and literary career of Edith Wharton by examining her work against the backdrop of the significant challenges faced by women writers in America at the time. Chambers argues that Wharton's ultimate success as a critically acclaimed writer offers a powerful, even if radically ironic, response to the repeated stories about the silencing of women found in much of her work. This book offers a close study of Wharton's major novels written between 1905 and 1922 and illuminates how Wharton's multi-layered narratives give her a voice and an important place in American literary history.

About this title

Product Description:

This close and innovative study of Edith Wharton's major novels reveals the use of increasingly complex narrative techniques to counter the multiple forces working against women writers at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Review:

"This book views Edith Wharton as a specific woman authoring women s stories at a specific historical moment. Chambers reminds us why we still need feminism: her examination of four of Wharton s novels illuminates the pervasive and damaging matrix of storytelling, power, and gender." - Jennifer Haytock, Associate Professor of English at SUNY College at Brockport and author of Edith Wharton and the Conversations of Literary Modernism " Feminist Readings of Edith Wharton offers a lens through which we can reassess Wharton s cultural critique, one that helped Wharton and the women authors who followed her gain a fuller, more authoritative participation in literary production. Through illuminating discussions of four major Wharton texts - The House of Mirth , Summer , The Reef , and The Glimpses of the Moon - Chambers explores the complex and somewhat contradictory relationship between Wharton s gender training and her evolution as a woman who eventually assumed the prerogatives of authorship . . .The volume is a valuable addition to our ongoing study of Wharton, narratology, and gender." - Marilyn Elkins, Professor of English, California State University, Los Angeles

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0230617654
• ISBN 13: 9780230617650
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208