Description
Book Synopsis
This literary critical book deals exclusively with contemporary fiction by women that focuses on aging of women. It discusses the emergence of a new fictional genre, the novel of ripening or Reifungsroman. This emerging genre about the aging heroine reconceptualizes middle and old age for women, taking it from a formerly stereotypical state of passivity and deterioration (by the hearthside) into one of adventure, growth, self-discovery, self-affirmation, and integration (on the open road). The book contains an extensive bibliography of twentieth-century popular periodical articles on aging (Canadian, American, and British); literary critical articles on aging in the fiction of Doris Lessing, Alice Adams, Paule Marshall, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Pym, May Sarton, and Margaret Laurence; as well as general literary critical works on these authors; and some general (non-literary) studies of aging, often from a feminist framework (such as Simone de Beavoir's The Coming of Age
Table of Contents
Introduction: A New Fictional Genre--The Reifungsroman, or Fiction of Ripening Popular Journalism's Treatment of Old Age and the Aging Experience Beginning the Journey to Selfhood in Middle Age New Passions and Commitments in Young Old Age Challenging Dependency and Embracing Death Conclusion: The Aging Woman in Society, the Reifungsroman, and Literary Criticism's Role Bibliography Index
