Voices of the Nation
Women and Public Speech in Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture
Published on 12. March 2009
Book
Paperback/Softback
204 pages
978-0-521-10252-0 (ISBN)
Description
Throughout the nineteenth century, American fiction displayed a fascination with women's speech - describing how women's voices sound, what happens when women speak and what reactions their speech produces, especially in their male listeners. Voices of the Nation argues that closer inspection of these recurring descriptions also performed political work that has had a profound - though unspecified to date - impact on American culture. Commentaries on the female voice were propounded by writers such as Henry James, William Dean Howells and Noah Webster, and these texts played a central role in attempts to define and enforce the radical social changes instituted by the emerging bourgeoisie.
Reviews / Votes
Review of the hardback: '... informative and illuminating.' Nineteenth-Century Literature Review of the hardback: 'Voices of the Nation carves out an important space in the evolution of a more complex, nuanced understanding of the role of women in shaping nineteenth-century American public life and identity.' American Literary RealismMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 12 mm
Weight
339 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-10252-0 (9780521102520)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Content
Introduction; The Voice of the Nation: Gender, Speech, and Nineteenth-Century American life; 1. Bawdy talk: The Politics of Women's Speech in Henry James's The Bostonians and Sarah J. Hale's The Lecturess; 2. 'Foul Mouthed Women': Disembodiment and Public Discourse in Herman Melville's Pierre and E.D.E.N. Southworth's The Fatal Marriage; 3. Incarnate Words: Nativism, Nationalism, and the Female Body in Maria Monk's Awful Disclosures ; 4. Partners in Speech: Reforming Labor, Class, and the Working Woman's Body in Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's The Silent Partner; 5. 'Queer Trimmings': Dressing, Cross-Dressing, and Women's Suffrage in Lillie Deereux Blake's Fettered for Life; 6. Southern Oratory and The Slavery Debate in Caroline Lee Hentz's Planter's Northern Bride and Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; Conclusion; 'Every Wrong that Needs a Voice': Women and Political Activism at the Turn into the Twentieth Century.