The erotics of talk

Description:

In this provocative rereading of the classic texts of the feminist literary canon, Carla Kaplan takes a hard look at the legacy of feminist criticism and argues that important features of feminism's own canon have been overlooked in the rush to rescue and identify. African-American women's texts, she demonstrates, often dramatize their distrust of their readers, their lack of faith in "the cultural conversation," through strategies of self-silencing and "self-talk." At the same time, she argues, the homoerotics of women's writing has too often gone unremarked. Not only does longing for an ideal listener draw women's texts into a romance with the reader, but there is an erotic excess which is part of feminist critical recuperation, itself. . Drawing on a wide range of resources, from sociolinguistics and anthropology to literary theory, Kaplan's highly readable study proposes a new model for understanding and representing "talk."

subjects: Feminism and literature,  Theory,  Literary form,  History and criticism,  American literature,  Women authors,  Narration (Rhetoric),  Women and literature,  History,  Jacobs, harriet a. (harriet ann), 1813-1897,  Hurston, zora neale, 1901-1960,  Bronte, charlotte, 1816-1855,  American literature, women authors

People: Zora Neale Hurston,  Harriet A. Jacobs (1813-1897),  Alice Walker (1944-),  Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855)

Places: United States

Times: 20th century