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Women in 19th literature
Women and Literature
Women and Literature
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George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) lived from 1819 to 1880. She was raised in a very traditional family. Her father was a farmer who managed various estates, and he made certain that his daughter was given a very strict Methodist education. She attended a series of boarding schools where she learned that which was typical for a young lady in the early part of the nineteenth century -- subjects such as French, piano, and handwriting. While at these boarding schools, she frequently turned to fiction as a form of amusement, establishing at an early age the foundation upon which her later novels would be based. Despite this traditional upbringing, though, Mary Ann Evans lived an adult life that many considered to be utterly scandalous. In the mid-1840's she began to question seriously the Christian faith in which she was raised, and by the end of the 1840's she had abandoned the church altogether. This questioning of religion may have initiated her literary career, though, her translation of Das Leben Jesu, a controversial inquiry into the tenets of Christianity, gained her some notice in L...
Anne Bradstreet’s inability to perfect her work before it was released frustrated her to the point where she internalizes the book’s imperfections as a reflection of herself. Bradstreet uses an extended metaphor of a mother and a child to compare the relationship between herself as the author and her book. Rather than investing her spirit in God, she repeatedly focuses on trying to improve the quality of her writing with no success, “I washed thy face, but more defects I saw” (Bradstreet 13). Like a mother protecting her child, Bradstreet’s attempts to prevent critics from negatively analyzing her work of art (20). Her continuous obsession about people’s opinions consumed in the Earthly world and essentially distracted her from developing a spiritual relationship with God. Bradstreet was enveloped by her dissatisfaction with her to the point of ridiculing herself, “Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble mind” (1). It was obvious that her mind and spiritual
Kraemer, Ross Shepard, and Mary Rose D'Angelo. Women and Christian Origins. New York: oxford University press Inc., 1999.
examines the effects of Eliot’s first marriage on his views of love and time. She
Young Mary headed into the Residential School full of faith and ambition to devote herself to God’s true beliefs. She taught the Native children religion and music in class, which they all seemed to greatly enjoy. Although, it did not make up for all
The most obvious stylistic device used by Eliot is that of personification. She uses this device to create two people from her thoughts on old and new leisure. The fist person is New Leisure, who we can infer to be part of the growth of industry in the 19th century. He is eager and interested in science, politics, and philosophy. He reads exciting novels and leads a hurried life, attempting to do many things at once. Such characteristics help us to create an image of New Leisure as Eliot sees him.
Mary Flannery O’Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925 into one of the oldest and most prominent Catholic families in Georgia. She was the only child of Edward, a real estate appraiser, and Regina O’Connor. The year after the family moved to Milledgeville in 1940, Flannery’s father contracted and died of lupus. She and her father had always had a close relationship, and 15-year-old Flannery was devastated (Gordon). Catholicism was always a huge aspect of life for the O’Connor family, living across the street from a cathedral and growing up in the Bible Belt (Liukkonen). Flannery attended parochial schools until entering the Georgia State College for Women, where she entered into an accelerated three-year program as a day student (Gordon). She graduated with a Social Sciences degree in 1945 and left Milledgeville for the State University of Iowa where she had been accepted in Paul Engle’s prestigious Writers Workshop. (“Flannery O’Connor”). Flannery devoted herself to what she loved most, writing, though she spent a great deal of her youth drawing pictures for a career as a cartoonist (Liukkonen). It was at this ...
Thomas Stearns Eliot was perhaps one of the most critical writers in the English language’s history. Youngest of seven children and born to the owner of a Brick Company, he wasn’t exactly bathed in poverty at all. Once he graduated from Harvard, he went on to found the Unitarian church of St. Luis. Soon after, Eliot became more serious about literature. As previously stated, his literature works were possibly some of the most famous in history. Dr. Tim McGee of Worland High School said that he would be the richest writer in history if he was still alive, and I have no choice but to believe him. In the past week many of his works have been observed in my English literature class. Of Thomas Stearns Eliot’s poems Preludes, The Journey of the Magi, The Hollow Men, The Waste Land, and Four Quartets, I personally find his poem The Hollow men to be the most relatable because of its musical allusions, use of inclusive language, and his opinion on society.
Vives, Juan Luis, and Charles Fantazzi. The education of a Christian woman a sixteenth-century manual. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Print.
Turner Sharp, Michele. If It Be a Monster Birth: Reading and Literary Property in Mary
In this analysis, we will be looking at just how Flannery O'Connor accomplished this seemingly impossible task, non-didactic Christian fiction, by examining elements of faith, elements of style, and thematic elements in her writing. While secondary sources are included for perspective, I have focused primarily upon Miss O'Connor's own essays and speeches in my examination of the writer's motivations, attitudes, and technique, most of which are contained in the posthumous collection Mystery and Manners. Unlike some more cryptic writers, O'Connor was happy to discuss the conceptual and philosophical underpinnings of her stories, and this candor is a godsend for the researcher that seeks to know what "makes the writer tick."
Emma Lazarus was born in New York City on July 22, 1849, and is the fourth child of Moses Lazarus, and Esther Lazarus. Moses Lazarus was a wealthy sugar merchant and his wife, Esther Lazarus was well known for her side of the family, which was a family whose members were very influential in New York legal circles. Emma and her siblings were raised in New York and were spoiled by their parents. Emma was very weak as a child and could not leave the house often so all of the Lazarus children were educated at home by private tutors. Lazarus’ first literary achievement happened because of her un-paralleled knack for languages. (7)
...ce of not being known by her real name in her writings for fear of not being taken seriously. Eliot’s feminist stance is shown in this novel through the societal conflicts Dorothea is faced with daily. Both writers faced criticism from their counter parts, but managed to still construct great works of art.
" Christianity & Literature 58.1 (2008): 81-92. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Mar. 2014. Fienberg, Lorne. "
Feminist critics point out that female writers achieved success due to their ability to conform to a world of patriarchal literature. George Eliot did so by conforming to society through the use of her pen name, Marian Evans. Booker argues that “women…lack the typical masculine castration anxiety and can therefore be comfortable with generosity and anonymity” (92). Both George Eliot and Dorothea Brooke seek to live a life of passion, yet “neither…can see a way to realize this desire directly” (Edwards 627). The issue of female identity comes into question as Dorothea searches for a solut...
Eagleton, Terry, "George Eliot: Ideology and Literary Form," in Middlemarch: New Casebooks, Ed. John Peck.