The Flesh Made Word: Female Figures and Women's Bodies PDF
Preview The Flesh Made Word: Female Figures and Women's Bodies
The Flesh Made Word This page intentionally left blank The Flesh Made Word FEMALE FIGURES AND WOMEN'S BODIES HELENA MICHIE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRKSS Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan COPYRIGHT © 1987 BY OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, INC. First published in 1987 by Oxford University Press, Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1989 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Michie, Helena R. The flesh made word. Bibliography, p. Includes index. i. English literature—igth century—History and criticism. 2. Women in literature. 3. Body, Human, in literature. 4. Women in art. 5. Painting, Victorian. I. Title. PR469.W6$M5 1987 820'.9*352042 86-5351 ISBN 0-19-504107-0 ISBN 0-19-506081-4 (PBK.) From "Menstruation at Forty" in LIVE OR DIE by Anne Sexton. Copyright © 1966 by Anne Sexton. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. 2468109753 i Printed in the United States of America To my mother, who chose my first books and in memory of my father, who helped me choose my first words. This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments This was written with the support and encouragement of many people. I would especially like to thank Nina Auerbach, whose magic can turn faulty Xerox copies of Pre-Raphaelite paintings into full-color pictures of Victorian women and the moons that haunt them. Thanks also to Elaine Scarry whose work on the body is as inspirational as her support of this project. I would finally like to acknowledge my enormous debt to Judith Levin and Colleen Lamos whose conversations and comments made this work—and any work—possible. David DeLaura, Houston Baker, and Ellen Pollak read early ver- sions of the manuscript and commented generously. I am grateful to Oxford University Press for, among other things, assigning this manuscript to a reader as lucid and careful as Margaret Homans. My heartfelt thanks to Joan Maruyama, Helen Healy, Susan Al- len, and William Flesch for their typing, proofreading, and com- pilation. It is with great affection that I thank my uncle, Dr. Leopold Wienick for his books and his wisdom in searching out Pre- Raphaelite art, and Scott Derrick for turning days of writing into days of feasting. February 1986 H.R.M. This page intentionally left blank Contents Introduction: Constructing the Frame, 3 CHAPTER I Ladylike Anorexia: Hunger, Sexuality, and Etiquette, 1212 CHAPTER II Becoming Public Women: Women and Work, 30 30 CHAPTER III Calling and Falling: Vocation and Prostitution, 5959 CHAPTER IV Body, Figure, Embodiment: The Paradoxes of Heroine Description, 79 CHAPTER v Re-membering the Body: Feminist Theory and Representation, 124 NOTES, 151 BIBLIOGRAPHY, 167 INDEX, 175
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