Voices of the nation women and public speech in nineteenth-century American literature and culture Cover Image

E-book

Voices of the nation [electronic resource] : women and public speech in nineteenth-century American literature and culture / Caroline Field Levander.

Levander, Caroline Field, 1964- (Author).

Summary:

Throughout the nineteenth century, American fiction displayed a fascination with women's speech - describing how women's voices sound and what reactions their speech produces, especially in their male listeners. Closer inspection of these recurring descriptions reveals that they also performed political work that has had a profound - though until now unspecified - impact on American culture. Caroline Leyander illustrates how commentaries on the female voice, propounded by such writers as Henry James, William Dean Howells, and Noah Webster, played a central role in attempts to define and enforce the radical social changes instituted by the emerging bourgeoisie. Levander also shows how nineteenth-century women authors depicted the female voice as a central theme in their novels and how these portrayals affected public speech.

Record details

ISBN: 0511005733 (electronic bk.)
ISBN: 9780511005732 (electronic bk.)
Physical Description: 1 online resource (x, 186 p.)
Publisher: New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Content descriptions

General Note:	Multi-User. Revision of author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Trinity University.
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-180) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	Introduction : gender, speech, and nineteenth-century American life -- Bawdy talk : the politics of women's public speech in Henry James's The Bostonians and Sarah J. Hale's The lecturess -- "Foul-mouthed women" : disembodiment and public discourse in Herman Melville's Pierre and E.D.E.N Southworth's The fatal marriage -- Incarnate words : nativism, nationalism, and the female body in Maria Monk's Awful disclosures -- Southern oratory and the slavery debate in Caroline Lee Hentz's The planters northern bride and Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the life of a slave girl -- Partners in speech : reforming labor, class, and the working woman's body in Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's The silent partner -- "Queer trimmings" : dressing, cross-dressing, and woman's suffrage in Lillie Devereaux Blake's Fettered for life -- Conclusion : women and political activism at the turn into the twentieth century.
Terms Governing Use and Reproduction Note:	Access restricted by subscription. Access requires VIU IP addresses and is restricted to VIU students, faculty and staff.
Source of Description Note:	Description based on print version record.