The Ends of History - Victorians and "the Woman Question" - Christina Crosby - Paperback Bog - Taylor & Francis Ltd - 2014 - Engelsk - Booktok.dk

Description

Why were the Victorians so passionate about "History"? How did this passion relate to another Victorian obsession - the "woman question"? In a brilliant and provocative study, Christina Crosby investigates the links between the Victorians'' fascination with "history" and with the nature of "women." Discussing both key novels and non-literary texts - Daniel Deronda and Hegel''s Philosophy of History ; Henry Esmond and Macaulay''s History of England ; Little Dorrit , Wilkie Collins'' The Frozen Deep , and Mayhew''s survey of "labour and the poor"; Villette , Patrick Fairburn''s The Typology of Scripture and Ruskin''s Modern Painters - she argues that the construction of middle-class Victorian "man" as the universal subject of history entailed the identification of "women" as those who are before, beyond, above, or below history. Crosby''s analysis raises a crucial question for today''s feminists - how can one read historically without replicating the problem of nineteenth century "history"? The book was first published in 1991.