Virginia Woolf and the Nineteenth-Century Domestic Novel (S U N Y Series, Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century) - Softcover

Blair, Emily

9780791471203: Virginia Woolf and the Nineteenth-Century Domestic Novel (S U N Y Series, Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0791471209 ISBN 13: 9780791471203

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 2008

Traces Woolf’s persistent yet vexed fascination with nineteenth-century descriptions of English domesticity and female creativity.

In Virginia Woolf and the Nineteenth-Century Domestic Novel, Emily Blair explores how nineteenth-century descriptions of femininity saturate both Woolf’s fiction and her modernist manifestos. Moving between the Victorian and modernist periods, Blair looks at a range of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century sources, including the literature of conduct and household management, as well as autobiography, essay, poetry, and fiction. She argues for a reevaluation of Woolf’s persistent yet vexed fascination with English domesticity and female creativity by juxtaposing the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell and Margaret Oliphant, two popular Victorian novelists, against Woolf’s own novels and essays. Blair then traces unacknowledged lines of influence and complex interpretations that Woolf attempted to disavow. While reconsidering Woolf’s analysis of women and fiction, Blair simultaneously deepens our appreciation of Woolf’s work and advances our understanding of feminine aesthetics.

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From the Back Cover:

In Virginia Woolf and the Nineteenth-Century Domestic Novel, Emily Blair explores how nineteenth-century descriptions of femininity saturate both Woolf's fiction and her modernist manifestos. Moving between the Victorian and modernist periods, Blair looks at a range of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century sources, including the literature of conduct and household management, as well as autobiography, essay, poetry, and fiction. She argues for a reevaluation of Woolf's persistent yet vexed fascination with English domesticity and female creativity by juxtaposing the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell and Margaret Oliphant, two popular Victorian novelists, against Woolf's own novels and essays. Blair then traces unacknowledged lines of influence and complex interpretations that Woolf attempted to disavow. While reconsidering Woolf's analysis of women and fiction, Blair simultaneously deepens our appreciation of Woolf's work and advances our understanding of feminine aesthetics.

"The intellectual importance of this book is apparent in the conjunction of textual and biographical readings provided by the author. She makes connections that help us to better understand both Woolf's modernism and the literary/cultural influence of the Victorian period." -- Carol Hanbery MacKay, author of Creative Negativity: Four Victorian Exemplars of the Female Quest
"Considering these domestic novels in relation to Virginia Woolf enlarges our understanding of the authors and helps us to conceive a tradition. After reading this book, I will read Woolf's novels differently, in the context of many Victorian novels, and that is quite an accomplishment for Blair." -- Adrienne Munich, author of Queen Victoria's Secrets

About the Author:

Emily Blair teaches English in the Humanities Division at Solano Community College in Fairfield, California.

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