Arja Rosenholm claims, that the new concept of realism, construed by the rhetorics of evolution and equality, strenghtened the male union of literature and masculinity. The 'new realism' was, in fact, gendered, and almost anti-female. It broke down the line of women's literature that had started in the beginning of the century: realism was thought to have exceeded the inferior (romantic) phase; it was feminized, and thus a number of women writers denigrated and retroactively marginalized. The psychological and philosophical self-understanding of women writes did not correspond to the ideals of the 'committed literature' of the 'middle class' realism, since most of the women writers were already older and of aristocratic origins. The ambiguous position, in which the women of the 1860s define the 'new' femininity – under the sign of the equality concept with its implicit patronizing judgements of women's cultural traditions – is shifted into the gender topography of their short stories: 'New Woman' 'awakes', but refuses to grow up, or to get old or mature.

Auteur(s): Rozenholm Arja
Publié par Helsinki: Kikimora Publications en 1999
659 pages, Paperback
ISBN 951-45-8892-4

Disponibilité : Presque en rupture au magasin