Dream and Literary Creation in Women's Writings in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Isabelle Hervouet, Anne Rouhette

• Publisher: Anthem Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781785277528
• eBook ISBN: 9781785277542
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This edited collection deals with dream as a literary trope and as a source of creativity in women's writings. It gathers essays spanning a time period from the end of the seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, with a strong focus on the Romantic period and particularly on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, in which dreams are at the heart of the writing process but also constitute the diegetic substance of the narrative. The contributions re-examine the oneiric facets of the novel and develop fresh perspectives on dreams and dreaming in Mary Shelley's fiction and on other female authors (Anne Finch, Ann Radcliffe, Emily and Charlotte Brontë and a few others), re-appraising the textuality of dreams and their link to women's creativity and creation as a whole.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• Part I WOMEN AND DREAMS: AN ONEIRIC FEMININE LITERARY TRADITION
• Part II DREAMS, ALTERITY AND THE DIVINE
• Part III DREAMING (OF) MONSTERS: DREAMS, CREATIVITY AND AESTHETICS IN MARY SHELLEY’S FICTION
• Part IV BEYOND FRANKENSTEIN
• Postscript: A Jigsaw of Dreams
• Index