Kate Chopin's The Awakening: A Routledge Study Guide and Sourcebook / Edition 1

by Janet Beer, Elizabeth Nolan

Overview

Damned upon publication for engaging with the taboo issues of female sexuality and infidelity, Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899) is now hailed as a key early feminist text and an important work of American literature.
This sourcebook combines accessible commentary with reprinted documents to provide the ideal introduction to this widely debated novel. The editors offer:

* extensive coverage of the contexts to the work, including biographical information on Chopin and the social and historical backgrounds to her writing
* an outline of the critical reception of the novel from the early reviews to contemporary debates, and extracts from influential essays
* selected chapters of the original text, reproduced with extensive commentary on key issues and suggestions on links with contextual and critical materials
* a guide to further reading, ideal for extended independent study.

Providing all the tools for engaged, informed individual analysis of the text, this sourcebook will greatly enrich any reading of The Awakening. It is an essential starting point for students of American literature and women's writing, or for anyone fascinated by Chopin's controversial work.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415238205
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/20/2004
Series:	Routledge Guides to Literature
Pages:	182
Product dimensions:	5.44(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Janet Beer is Professor of English, and Dean and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, at Manchester Metropolitan University. Elizabeth Nolan is Associate Lecturer in the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations
Series Editor's Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1: Contexts

Contextual Overview
Further reading
Chronology

Contemporary Documents

Albert Rhodes, 'The Louisiana Creoles', The Galaxy (1873)
Amelia E. Barr, 'The Modern Novel', The North American Review (1894)
Amelia E. Barr, 'Good and Bad Mothers', The North American Review (1893)
'The New Heroines of Fiction', Harper's Bazaar (1898)
'French Novels for Public Libraries', Harper's Bazaar (1896)
Arthur Martine, Martine's Hand-Book of Etiquette (1866)
'A Social Problem', Harper's Bazaar (1896)
'What Girls are Doing', Harper's Bazaar (1897)
'Kissing', Godey's Lady's Book (1876)
'Smoking in the Street Cars', The Daily Picayune (1899)
'Bathing and Bathing Costumes', (article), The Delineator (1895)
Robert Grant, 'The Art of Living: The Summer Problem', Scribner's Magazine (1895)
'Suicide', The Galaxy (1876)
Jessie J. Cassidy, 'The Legal Status of Women' (1897)
Evelyn W. Ordway, 'How the Women of New Orleans Discovered their Wish to Vote (1900)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics (1898)
Extracts from Kate Chopin's Commonplace Book (1867-1870)

2: Interpretations

Critical History

Nineteenth-Century Responses

Contemporary Reviews

C.L. Deyo, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1899)
Providence Sunday Journal (1899)
Chicago Times Herald (1899)
The Outlook (1899)
St Louis Daily Globe-Democrat (1899)
Willa Cather, Pittsburgh Leader (1899)



Modern Criticism

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, 'The Awakening in the Context of the Experience, Culture and Values of Southern Women'(1988)

Nancy Walker, 'The Historical and Cultural Setting' (1988)
Emily Toth, Kate Chopin: A Life of the Author of The Awakening, Chapter One (1990)
Bert Bender, 'The Teeth of Desire: The Awakening and The Descent of Man' (1991)
Michelle A. Birnbaum, 'Alien Hands: Kate Chopin and the Colonization of Race' (1994)
Cynthia Griffin Wolff, 'Un-Utterable Longing: The Discourse of Feminine Sexuality in
The Awakening' (1996)
Helen Taylor, 'Walking Through New Orleans: Kate Chopin and the Female Flaneur' (1997)
Donald Pizer, 'A Note on Kate Chopin's The Awakening as Naturalistic Fiction' (2001)

Elisabeth Le Blanc, 'The Metaphorical Lesbian: Edna Pontellier in The Awakening' (1996)

Stephen Heath, 'Chopin's Parrot' (1994)

Ivy Schweitzer, 'Maternal Discourse and the Romance of Self-Possession in Kate Chopin's The Awakening' (1990)

Janet Beer, 'Walking the Streets: Women out Alone in Kate Chopin's New Orleans (2004)



3: Key Passages

Introduction

Key Passages of The Awakening


4: Further Reading

Recommended Editions

Further Reading
Index

Editorial Reviews

'A Clear concise and convincing analysis of the works position in the critical canon of American Literature.' - European Journal of English Studies

'A reader friendly critical study of an American Masterpiece.' - Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany.

From the Publisher