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Articles 1 - 7 of 7
Full-Text Articles in Reading and Language
Rebellion In The Metropolis: George Gissing's New Woman Musician, Laura Vorachek
Rebellion In The Metropolis: George Gissing's New Woman Musician, Laura Vorachek
Laura Vorachek
In his depiction of Alma Frothingham, the female protagonist of The Whirlpool, George Gissing intersects two cultural debates of the fin de siècle: the New Woman and female musical genius. Setting his novel against the backdrop of the specular economy of late-nineteenth-century London, Gissing’s engagement with these debates sheds light on the vexed question of his feminism. His New Woman’s increased autonomy and sexual freedom is evident in her pursuit of a professional music career. Alma believes she has control over her own sexuality and the sexual response her performances elicit in others. However, she does not recognize that by …
Whitewashing Blackface Minstrelsy In Nineteenth-Century England: Female Banjo Players In 'Punch', Laura Vorachek
Whitewashing Blackface Minstrelsy In Nineteenth-Century England: Female Banjo Players In 'Punch', Laura Vorachek
Laura Vorachek
Blackface minstrelsy, popular in England since its introduction in 1836, reached its apogee in 1882 when the Prince of Wales took banjo lessons from James Bohee, an African-American performer. The result, according to musicologist Derek Scott, was a craze for the banjo among men of the middle classes. However, a close look at the periodical press, and the highly influential Punch in particular, indicates that the fad extended to women as well. While blackface minstrelsy was considered a wholesome entertainment in Victorian England, Punch's depiction of female banjo players highlights English unease with this practice in a way that male …
Dangerous Women: Vera Caspary’S Rewriting Of 'Lady Audley’S Secret' In 'Bedelia', Laura Vorachek
Dangerous Women: Vera Caspary’S Rewriting Of 'Lady Audley’S Secret' In 'Bedelia', Laura Vorachek
Laura Vorachek
Considering Vera Caspary's Bedelia as a reimagining of Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret allows for a new critical interpretation that refutes the typical view of Bedelia as reinforcing traditional gender roles. Instead, Caspary critiques World War II America by bringing Victorian concerns with female roles into the twentieth century.
Intertextuality And Ideology: Jane Austen's 'Pride And Prejudice' And James Fordyce's 'Sermons To Young Women', Laura Vorachek
Intertextuality And Ideology: Jane Austen's 'Pride And Prejudice' And James Fordyce's 'Sermons To Young Women', Laura Vorachek
Laura Vorachek
In Jane Austen’s Art of Memory and other works, Jocelyn Harris has demonstrated the importance of Austen’s literary contexts for understanding and appreciating Austen’s art. One context for understanding Pride and Prejudice is the conduct book it mentions by name, James Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women. Mr. Collins chooses it to read aloud to the Bennet girls, and when Lydia interrupts him, he responds: “I have often observed how little young ladies are interested by books of a serious stamp, though written solely for their benefit.” I would argue that reading Pride and Prejudice next to Fordyce’s Sermons reveals that …
Reading Music: Representing Female Performance In Nineteenth-Century British Piano Method Books And Novels, Laura Vorachek
Reading Music: Representing Female Performance In Nineteenth-Century British Piano Method Books And Novels, Laura Vorachek
Laura Vorachek
The editorial content of piano method books published in the nineteenth century contributed to the gendering of the domestic piano by targeting a middle-class female audience. At the same time, these tutorials circumscribed the ability and ambition of female pianists, cautioning women against technical display or performing challenging pieces in company, thereby reinforcing the stereotype of the graceful, demure woman who played a little. However, this effort was complicated by both the tutorials themselves and contemporary fiction. The middle-class women reading these tutorials also read novels—a fact the method books occasionally acknowledge—which often presented a very different picture of women’s …
Crossing Boundaries: Land And Sea In Jane Austen's 'Persuasion', Laura Vorachek
Crossing Boundaries: Land And Sea In Jane Austen's 'Persuasion', Laura Vorachek
Laura Vorachek
Jane Austen suggests in Persuasion the pressures that the increased mobility of the middle class placed on the established aristocratic society in her time. Anne Elliot especially brings to light the inherited assumptions of her society. She can marry within her social rank (Mr. Elliot or Charles Musgrove) or marry below her (Wentworth at age 23), but either is a choice within the limits established by her society. One owns land or one does not. But when Wentworth returns a man of name and wealth, he is not a member of the landed gentry nor is he below Anne in …
Speculation And The Emotional Economy Of 'Mansfield Park', Laura Vorachek
Speculation And The Emotional Economy Of 'Mansfield Park', Laura Vorachek
Laura Vorachek
At the midpoint of Mansfield Park (1814), the Bertram family dines at the Parsonage, and card games make up the after dinner entertainment. The characters form two groups, with Sir Thomas, Mrs. Norris, and Mr. and Mrs. Grant playing Whist, while Lady Bertram, Fanny, William, Edmund, and Henry and Mary Crawford play Speculation, This scene is central not only because Speculation reveals certain characters' personalities, but also because another type of “speculation” occurs during the game as the players contemplate or conjecture about one another. Moreover, “speculation” in the sense of gambling functions as a metaphor for the vicissitudes of …