ABSTRACT
The Routledge Companion to Literature and Feminism brings unique literary, critical, and historical perspectives to the relationship between women’s writing and women’s rights in British contexts from the late eighteenth century to the present.
Thematically organised around five central concepts—Rights, Networks, Bodies, Production, and Activism—the Companion tracks vital questions and debates, offering fresh perspectives on changing priorities and enduring continuities in relation to women’s ongoing struggle for liberty and equality. This groundbreaking collection brings into focus the historical and cultural conditions which have shaped the formation of British literary feminisms, including the legacies of slavery, colonialism, and Empire. From the political novel of the 1790s to early twentieth-century suffrage theatre and contemporary ecofeminism, and from the mid-Victorian antislavery movement to anti-fascist activism in the 1930s and working-class women’s writing groups in the 1980s, this book testifies to the diverse and dynamic character of the relationship between literature and feminism.
Featuring contributions from leading feminist scholars, the Companion offers new insights into the crucial role played by women’s literary production in the evolving history of women’s rights discourses, feminist activism, and movements for gender equality. It will appeal to students and scholars in the fields of women’s writing, British literature, cultural history, and gender and feminist studies.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|84 pages
Rights
chapter 1|13 pages
Like nobody else
chapter 2|13 pages
Romantic women travel writers, politics and the environment
chapter 3|14 pages
Feminism and animal advocacy in the long nineteenth century
chapter 4|13 pages
“They all revolved about her”
chapter 5|14 pages
The “quest for harmony”?
chapter 6|15 pages
Jan Morris and the territory between
part II|69 pages
Networks
chapter 7|12 pages
“Men shall not make us foes”
chapter 8|13 pages
Transatlantic feminism and antislavery activism
chapter 10|15 pages
“It was little more than a dining club”
chapter 11|15 pages
“What means a frontier?”
part III|94 pages
Bodies
chapter 12|18 pages
Reputation of [her] pen
chapter 13|14 pages
“We wear the bandages, but our limbs have not grown to them”
chapter 16|19 pages
“The Rule of Three”
part IV|89 pages
Production
chapter 18|16 pages
“O Happiness, thou pleasing dream, / Where is thy substance found?”
chapter 19|13 pages
“Dearest Norah…”
chapter 20|16 pages
Feminist citation in Buchi Emecheta's early fiction and autobiography
chapter 21|14 pages
“Working with cloth”
chapter 22|16 pages
“To the sisters I always wanted”
chapter 23|12 pages
Mother Country
part V|97 pages
Activism