Description
Book SynopsisFor generations, critics have noticed in nineteenth-century American women''s sentimentality a streak of masochism, but their discussions of it have over-simplified its complex relationship to women''s power. Marianne Noble argues that tropes of eroticized domination in sentimental literature must be recognized for what they were: a double-edged sword of both oppression and empowerment. She begins by exploring the cultural forces that came together to create this ideology of desire, particularly Protestant discourses relating suffering to love and middle-class discourses of true womanhood. She goes on to demonstrate how sentimental literature takes advantage of the expressive power in the convergence of these two discourses to imagine women''s romantic desire. Therefore, in sentimental literature, images of eroticized domination are not antithetical to female pleasure but rather can be constitutive of it. The book, however, does not simply celebrate that fact. In readings of Warner'
Trade Review
One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2000 "This book does an admirable job of assessing the cultural and libidinal values attached to sentimental fiction and its prevalent tropology of erotic domination in 19th century writing by women."--Virginia Quarterly Review "[A] complex, nuanced volume ...Though the author abundantly documents the oppressive aspects of fantasies of masochistic desire, she also traces the kinds of power and pleasure produced in works that eroticize female attraction to pain and submission to male domination."--Choice "Noble's flexible and dazzling close reading of Stowe, Warner, and Dickinson are artful, and she usefully demonstrates that exploring the variations of individualistic psychological response is key to understanding the work of sentimental discourse."--Rebecca Wanzo, American Literature
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii Introduction "Weird Curves": Masochism and Feminism 3 One Masochistic Discourses of Womanhood 26 Two Sentimental Masochism 61 Tbe Parallel Structures of Sentimentalism and Masochism 62 "The Lineaments of the Divine Master" 85 Three "An Ecstasy of Apprehension": The Erotics, of Domination in The Wide, Wide World 94 The Making of a Masochist 96 Horsewhipping and the Exploration of Desire 113 Four The Ecstasies of Sentimental Wounding in Uncle Tom's Cabin 126 The Epistemology of Wounds 128 A Raging, Burning Storm of Feeling 136 Five The Revenge of Cato's Daughter: Emily Dickinson's Uses of Sentimental Masochism 147 The Power of Sentimental Masochism 157 The Erotics of Sentimental Masochism 164 The Presence of Sentimental Masochism 174 Conclusion The Possibility of Masochism 190 Notes 199 Works Cited 235 Index 251
