Dickens & Women ReObserved

Edward Guiliano, Professor Edward Guiliano

• Publisher: Edward Everett Root
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781913087203
• eBook ISBN: 9781913087210
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Modern Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Dickens & Women ReObservedis a rich collection of new essays by scholars and critics from various parts of the world who represent a new appreciation and understanding of Charles Dickens and things woman. / A new generation of scholars and critics, first led by feminist critics of the 1970s, began to re-observe the man and his works with fresh eyes. A second generation of critics—those now schooled in gender studies, cultural studies, psychological theory, play theory, eco-criticism, thing theory, and a range of isms and schisms that flourish in the academy today—have originated a new and more reflective discourse on Dickens and women, and women generally in the nineteenth century. / Collectively, the essays in this volume overturn a prevalent and largely unchallenged belief held for more than 150 years: that Dickens' female characters were one-dimensional Victorian stereotypes only and that, as exemplified by his literary depictions and conflicted personal life, he did not understand or value women as important, capable, or gifted in their own right. / While neither ignoring nor discounting Dickens' troubled relationships with women and reliance on certain Victorian stereotypes, the essays inDickens & Women ReObserveddemonstrate that in a myriad of ways Dickens' appreciation of women in his fiction and his life was far more subtle, sophisticated, and complex than previously understood. Consciously or unconsciously he crafted characters more individualized, independent, rounded, and assertive than typical stock cultural characterizations of women. Additionally, in his exuberant social and professional life, he was drawn to and worked amiably with such "new" women. Dickens life and work today appear evidently modern and nuanced in his regard for women and their abilities. / Dickens & Women ReObservedis an important work for comprehending one of the world's greatest novelists and, by extension, facilitating greater study of contemporary views of Victorian women. In prose accessible to the general reader as well as scholars in literary studies, the diverse essays in this volume investigate a broad range of subjects in Dickens' celebrated artistry, including Modernism, Queen Victoria, Ellen Ternan, adaptations, composition methods, gender, sensuality, agency, major female characters, and French as well as African relevancies.

Table of contents

• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Complex Women Because of or Despite Dickens?
• “Making a Rosebud of Her Mouth”
• “Raving with Love for the Queen”
• Romance Games
• Dickens’ Feminist Heroines
• The Complications of Virtue
• Bleak House, Esther Summerson, and Gendered Identity
• The Design on the Skin
• Esther’s Potential “Visible Facts”
• Navigating the Beauty and Brokenness of Humility
• “You Can’t Look at Me Out of a Child’s Eyes”
• Devilishly Attractive
• Dickens’ Women in Great Expectations Against the African Social Landscape
• Holiday Romance
• Nelly Onstage
• “A Horrid Female Waterman”
• Refraction and Reflection in the Swiss Chalet
• The Woman Detective in The Mystery of Edwin Drood
• Dickens Among Women Modernist Writers
• Selected Bibliography: Dickens and Women
• List of Contributors