| Prodigal Daughters: Susanna Rowson's Early American Women Contributor(s): Rust, Marion (Author) |
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ISBN: 0807858927 ISBN-13: 9780807858929 Publisher: Omohundro Institute and Unc Press OUR PRICE: $40.38 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: March 2008 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Women Authors - Literary Criticism | American - General - Social Science | Women's Studies |
| Dewey: 813.2 |
| LCCN: 2007037349 |
| Series: Institute of Early American History & Culture (Paperback) |
| Physical Information: 0.78" H x 6.27" W x 9.12" (1.02 lbs) 328 pages |
| Themes: - Sex & Gender - Feminine - Chronological Period - 18th Century - Chronological Period - 1800-1850 - Chronological Period - 19th Century |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Susanna Rowson--novelist, actress, playwright, poet, school founder, and early national celebrity--bears little resemblance to the title character in her most famous creation, Charlotte Temple. Yet this best-selling novel has long been perceived as the prime exemplar of female passivity and subjugation in the early Republic. Marion Rust disrupts this view by placing the novel in the context of Rowson's life and other writings. Rust shows how an early form of American sentimentalism mediated the constantly shifting balance between autonomy and submission that is key to understanding both Rowson's work and the lives of early American women. Rust proposes that Rowson found a wide female audience in the young Republic because she articulated meaningful female agency without sacrificing accountability to authority, a particularly useful skill in a nation that idealized womanhood while denying women the most basic rights. Rowson, herself an expert at personal reinvention, invited her readers, theatrical audiences, and students to value carefully crafted female self-presentation as an instrument for the attainment of greater influence. Prodigal Daughters demonstrates some of the ways in which literature and lived experience overlapped, especially for women trying to find room for themselves in an increasingly hostile public arena. |
Contributor Bio(s): Rust, Marion: - Marion Rust is assistant professor of English at the University of Kentucky. |