Private Voices, Public Lives: Women Speak on the Literary Life

Front Cover
Nancy Owen Nelson
University of North Texas Press, 1995 - Literary Criticism - 319 pages
Interweaving the personal, private voice with scholarly, public intent, Nelson and the other contributors argue for a more interactive and cooperative approach to the teaching, reading, critiquing, and writing of literature.

These essays are a direct result of the desire by many women within the academic community to break free of what has been called the “masculine” or “adversary” mode of literary criticism.

Private Voices, Public Lives is of critical importance to readers, teachers, reviewers, and critics. The essays incorporate ideas on current issues of autobiography, memoir, women's voice, reader response, diversity, life writing, and gender.

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Contents

THE READER AND THE TEXT IN KATHERINE ANNE PORTERS PALE HORSE PALE RIDER
3
LOVE WORK AND WILLA CATHER
11
THE VOICES FROM THE LITTLE HOUSE
19
REWRITING THE LOVE PLOT OUR WAY WOMEN AND WORK
29
NANCY DREWTHE PERFECT SOLUTION
41
WRESTLING WITH THE MOTHER AND THE FATHER HIS AND HER IN ADRIENNE RICH
54
IN SEARCH OF THE ANDROGYNOUS SELF
64
FROM ROBOT TO ROARER
72
SPEAKING ACROSS BOUNDARIES AND SHARING THE LOSS OF A CHILD
163
TRAILING WEST
183
A SPIRITUAL GEOGRAPHY REVISITED
194
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
209
BREAKING PATTERNS FINDING VOICES
225
SEARCH AND RESCUE
238
DIVERSITY AND THE AMERICAN DREAM
250
WOMENS LITERATURE AS INDIVIDUATION FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS
261

A WHITE BIRD FLYING STRAIGHT DOWN
86
MY LIFE AS A LESBIAN TEACHER
99
IN AROUND AND ABOUT AMY TANS THE JOY LUCK CLUB
111
A PERSONAL LOG
125
MUTATIONS OF A HUNGARIAN CONTINENTAL DRIFTER INTO AN AMERICAN WOMAN
141
TRAPPEDTHEN RELEASEDBY A GIFT FROM THE SEA
153
FINDING MY VOICE CAUGHT BETWEEN A WOOLF AND A CRANE
270
VIRGINIA WOOLF AND THE COMMON READER
283
CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES
299
INDEX TO AUTHORS CHARACTERS SUBJECTS
311
Copyright

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Page 91 - See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me : I kill, and I make alive ; I wound and I heal ; neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
Page 58 - And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things ; but one thing is needful. And Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
Page 68 - O why did God, Creator wise, that peopl'd highest Heav'n With Spirits Masculine, create at last This novelty on Earth, this fair defect Of Nature, and not fill the World at once 308 With Men as Angels without Feminine, Or find some other way to generate Mankind...
Page 98 - Pain — has an Element of Blank — It cannot recollect When it begun — or if there were A time when it was not — It has no Future — but itself — Its Infinite contain Its Past — enlightened to perceive New Periods — of Pain.
Page 97 - I stepped from plank to plank A slow and cautious way, The stars about my head I felt, About my feet the sea. I knew not but the next Would be my final inch — This gave me that precarious gait Some call experience.
Page 97 - The Props assist the House Until the House is built And then the Props withdraw And adequate, erect, The House support itself And cease to recollect The augur and the Carpenter — Just such a retrospect Hath the perfected Life — A past of Plank and Nail And slowness — then the Scaffolds drop Affirming it a Soul. Here she seems to be saying not just that she is getting along fine without faith — the "Props...
Page 89 - He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
Page 19 - Every parent possesses the opportunity of observing, how deeply children resent the injury of a delusion; and if men laugh at the falsehoods that were imposed on themselves during their childhood, it is because they are not good and wise enough to contemplate the Past in the Present, and so to produce by a virtuous and thoughtful sensibility that continuity in their self-consciousness, which Nature has made the law of their animal Life*.

About the author (1995)

Nancy Owen Nelson taught at Auburn University, Albion College, and Augustana before accepting her present position at Henry Ford Community College. Her previous book, The Selected Letters of Frederick Manfred: 1932–1954, led to her exploration of androgyny and other gender issues.

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