Dickinson and the Strategies of Reticence: The Woman Writer in Nineteenth-Century America

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Indiana University Press, Sep 22, 1989 - Literary Criticism - 160 pages

Rejecting the view that interprets Emily Dickinson exclusively as a proto-modernist poet, Joanne Dobson finds Dickinson rooted in the expressive assumptions of her contemporary women writers. By looking at Dickinson in the context of these writers, Dobson uncovers the effects of common grounding in a cultural ethos of femininity that mandated personal reticence. Combining literary history and contemporary feminist literary theory, this study posits a complex interaction of personal preferences and editorial policies that resulted in a community of expression with impact on women's writing and literary careers.

 

Contents

A Certain Prejudice
1
My Author Existence
26
1
92
Are There Any Lives of Women?
144
Copyright

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