Greatness Engendered
George Eliot and Virginia Woolf
Published on 15. August 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-1-5017-2777-1 (ISBN)
Description
The egotism that fuels the desire for greatness has been associated exclusively with men, according to one feminist view; yet many women cannot suppress the need to strive for greatness. In this forceful and compelling book, Alison Booth traces through the novels, essays, and other writings of George Eliot and Virginia Woolf radically conflicting attitudes on the part of each toward the possibility of feminine greatness. Examining the achievements of Eliot and Woolf in their social contexts, she provides a challenging model of feminist historical criticism.
Reviews / Votes
Booth successfully demonstrates how Eliot and Woolf challenged gender prescriptions by the very act of writing history as well as by the kind of history they wrote. She is careful to point out that Eliot and Woolf were not the first to shift the focus of history to common life, but she persuasively argues that they pushed it further by explicitly addressing what patriarchal discourses had silenced or obscured: the issue of gender and historical interpretation.- Suzanne Graver (Modern Philology) Greatness Engendered takes its place appropriately in Cornell's Reading Women Writing series. It provides a useful examination of how two major authors both read and wrote the problem of greatness.
- Caroline Webb (South Atlantic Review)
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Ithaca
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
907 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5017-2777-1 (9781501727771)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
03/2018
Cornell University Press
€4.49
Available for download
Person
Alison Booth is Professor of English at the University of Virginia and Director of the Scholars' Lab at the University of Virginia Library. She is the author of How to Make It as a Woman: Collective Biographical History from Victoria to the Present, winner of the Barbara Penny Kanner Award.