American Women Writers and the Work of History, 1790-1860Just as she helped launch the rediscovery of literary texts by American women writers, Nina Baym now uncovers the work of history performed by over 150 writers in over 350 texts. Here she explores a world of important writing unknown even to most specialists. The novels, poems, plays, textbooks, and travel narratives written by women between 1790 and the Civil War defy current theories of women's writing that stress a female domain of the private, homebound, and emotional. History is inarguably public in its nature and these women wrote it. In doing so, they challenged the imaginative and intellectual boundaries that divided domestic and public worlds. They claimed on behalf of all women the rights to know and to speak about the world outside the home, as well as to circulate their knowledge and opinions among the public. Their work helped shape the enormous public interest in history characteristic of the antebellum nation, and ultimately to forge our national identity in the history of the world. Nina Baym deftly outlines the master narrative of history implied in women's writings of this period, and discusses in a completely revisioned context the emergence of women's history in public discourse.
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... thou , vile woman , impious Theodora , Who dar'd to break the ligaments of affection , What though thou now mayest steep thine hands in blood , Yet think , oh ! think , remorseless , fiend - like woman , The day of retribution is at ...
... thou hast forgot / That I am King , and thou hast no protector ! " ( 55 ) , he says - Blanche stops him with a volley of numbing rhetoric and flounces off : Thou art my sovereign - I a friendless subject- I woman , and thou man ! -my ...
... thou alone canst free them . Thou , the chosen The appointed one , the ordained of heaven , And raised to greatness for this work alone ! She responds : The task thou nam'st is all too vast and high It asks a mighty hand , a lofty soul ...
Contents
Women as Students of History II | 11 |
Maternal Historians Didactic Mothers | 29 |
History from the Divine Point of View | 46 |
Copyright | |
6 other sections not shown