LITTLE WOMEN and THE FEMINIST IMAGINATION

Criticism, Controversy, Personal Essays

Janice M. Alberghene, Beverly Lyon Clark, Janice M. Alberghene, Beverly Lyon Clark

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781138798977
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135593254
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Raising key questions about race, class, sexuality, age, material culture, intellectual history, pedagogy, and gender, this book explores the myriad relationships between feminist thinking and Little Women, a novel that has touched many women's lives. A critical introduction traces 130 years of popular and critical response, and the collection presents 11 new essays, two new bibliographies, and reprints of six classic essays.
The contributors examine the history of illustrating Little Women; Alcott's use of domestic architecture as codes of female self-expression; the tradition of utopian writing by women; relationship to works by British and African American writers; recent thinking about feminist pedagogy; the significance of the novel for women writers, and its implications from the vantage points of middle-aged scholar, parent, and resisting male reader.

INDEX

AAUW xxxii, 286, 287, 290, 291, 294, 295

Abbott, Jacob xxvii, 44

Abbott, Lyman xxiv

abolitionism 22, 239, 289, 313, 351–353

Addams, Jane xv, xix

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain) xxx, 61, 80n.28

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain) xxviii, 81n.33, 164, 168

African Americans xl, 65–67, 293, 311, 313, 321n.81, 329, 347, 350–370. See also interracial love; race; racism

age

hierarchies of 19, 69, 341

Jo’s views on 51, 94

veneration for xlviin.64

Alberghene, Janice M. xxxix–xl

Alcott, Abigail (Abba) 45–48, 56, 61, 84, 187, 271, 289, 295

Alcott, Anna xvii, 45, 47, 84, 85, 241, 267

Alcott, Bronson

childrearing and pedagogical practices of 45–47, 83–84, 187, 213–214, 235n.20, 245–246, 261, 267, 271–272, 288, 295–296

establishment of Fruitlands 22, 26n.24, 47–48, 84, 173, 238–240, 243, 248–249

marriage to Abba 45–48, 187

philosophical idealism of xxvi, xxxii, 24n.5, 45, 57–58, 61, 84, 246–247, 332

relationship with Louisa 47, 52, 83–84, 104, 157n.16

scholarship devoted to xxvi–xxvii, xlixn.81

Alcott, Elizabeth xvii, 45, 84, 85

Alcott, John Pratt 120

Alcott, Louisa May

ambivalence toward self xxxi, 27–29, 40, 77, 142, 159n.37

autobiographical...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• GENERAL EDITOR’S FOREWORD
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• CARTOON—LITTLE WOMEN: MEG, AMY, BETH, JO AND MARMEE FACE LIFE IN THE ’80s
• WAITING TOGETHER: ALCOTT ON MATRIARCHY
• LITTLE WOMEN: ALCOTT’S CIVIL WAR
• INTRODUCTION TO LITTLE WOMEN
• READING FOR LOVE: CANONS, PARACANONS, AND WHISTLING JO MARCH
• “THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS IN ALL THE WORLD”? FAMILIES IN LITTLE WOMEN
• PORTRAYING LITTLE WOMEN THROUGH THE AGES
• GETTING COZY WITH A CLASSIC: VISUALIZING LITTLE WOMEN (1868–1995)
• “QUEER PERFORMANCES”: LESBIAN POLITICS IN LITTLE WOMEN
• MEN AND LITTLE WOMEN: NOTES OF A RESISTING (MALE) READER
• IN JO’S GARRET: LITTLE WOMEN AND THE SPACE OF IMAGINATION
• “A POWER IN THE HOUSE”: LITTLE WOMEN AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF INDIVIDUAL EXPRESSION
• THE PROPHETS AND THE MARTYRS: PILGRIMS AND MISSIONARIES IN LITTLE WOMEN AND JACK AND JILL
• A GREATER HAPPINESS: SEARCHING FOR FEMINIST UTOPIA IN LITTLE WOMEN
• TRANSATLANTIC TRANSLATIONS: COMMUNITIES OF EDUCATION IN ALCOTT AND BRONTË
• LEARNING FROM MARMEE’S TEACHING: ALCOTT’S RESPONSE TO GIRLS’ MISEDUCATION
• SONGS TO AGING CHILDREN: LOUISA MAY ALCOTT’S MARCH TRILOGY
• AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND THE BOUNDARIES OF INTERPRETATION: ON READING LITTLE WOMEN AND THE LIVING IS EASY
• ALCOTT IN JAPAN: A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
• SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ALCOTT BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM
• CONTRIBUTORS
• INDEX