Constance Fenimore Woolson’s Subversive Politics

Author:   Victoria Brehm
Publisher:   Lexington Books
ISBN:  

9781666921533


Pages:   230
Publication Date:   24 May 2023
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
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Constance Fenimore Woolson’s Subversive Politics


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Overview

This seminal study reveals how Constance Fenimore Woolson participated in debates on nineteenth-century political topics considered the province of men. She commented on the most important issues of her time: monetary policy, post-Reconstruction legal decisions, racial justice and interracial marriage, women’s rights, religious hypocrisy, environmental destruction, destabilizing international developments, and the moral character of the nation. The innovative essays in this book introduce her techniques and the political concerns that inspired her complicated art, encouraging scholars to begin the process of rereading and reanalyzing Woolson’s oeuvre to understand the compelling allegories and satires she created. The oppositional, intertextual, and referential techniques she developed allowed her to enter contested political conversations about compelling nineteenth-century problems like few women of her century, sometimes making her work political commentary as much as fiction.

Full Product Details

Author:   Victoria Brehm
Publisher:   Lexington Books
Imprint:   Lexington Books/Fortress Academic
Dimensions:   Width: 15.90cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 24.00cm
Weight:   0.494kg
ISBN:  

9781666921533


ISBN 10:   166692153
Pages:   230
Publication Date:   24 May 2023
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. “The Lady of Little Fishing” (1874) and “Castle Nowhere” (1875): The Politics of Race and Money Chapter 2. “Mission Endeavor” (1876): Jerusalem on Lake Superior Chapter 3. “Mrs. Edward Pinckney” (1879): Interracial Marriage in the Post-Bellum South Chapter 4. “A Florentine Experiment” (1880): J. P. Morgan and the Responsibilities of Wealth Chapter 5. For the Major (1882): Lies, Secrets, Silence Chapter 6. Horace Chase (1893): Gilded Age Sense and Sensibility Chapter 7. “A Waitress” (1894): American Complacency at the Fin de Siècle Conclusion Bibliography About the Author

Reviews

Victoria Brehm makes us look deeper into Woolson's prose and motivations in order to uncover her profound concern with national events, international politics, and the ambiguities of social and political leaders. Brehm pierces through the self-protective screens that Woolson often used to mask these issues by analyzing seemingly minute references and by uncovering a complex underbody of satire, allegory, and yes, anger at a world that denies women rights. Particularly strong readings of For the Major and Horace Chase impress, but shorter works, we find, underneath romantic surfaces, also provide sharp takes on the gold standard, industrialization, and the corruptions of the gilded age. Well researched, and eloquently written, this study gives us unsuspected and rewarding apertures into a great artist's ideological concerns and methods. -- John Wharton Lowe, University of Georgia For decades, scholars have engaged in the careful work of exposing the depths beneath the surfaces of Constance Fenimore Woolson's texts - pulling a thread here and another there. Dr. Brehm's book progresses that work further than any Woolson scholarship to date. Her grasp of nineteenth-century politics and culture allows her to reveal a rich informed view of Woolson's engagement with postbellum American society. Best yet, Brehm reveals resonances between the deeply politically polarized postbellum America and the equally polarized America of our own time. She makes an irresistible case for Woolson's relevance to America today while simultaneously grounding her texts in post-Civil War America. -- Jacqueline Justice, Bowling Green State University-Firelands College


Author Information

Victoria Brehm is retired professor of American literature and helped found the Constance Fenimore Woolson Society.

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