Sisters in Literature: Female Sexuality in Antigone, Middlemarch, Howards End and Women in Love PDF
Preview Sisters in Literature: Female Sexuality in Antigone, Middlemarch, Howards End and Women in Love
SISTERS IN LITERATURE This page intentionally left blank Sisters in Literature Female Sexuality in Antigone, Middlemarch, Howards End and Women in Love Masako Hirai Professor English Department Kobe College Nishinomiya, Japan flfl m First published in Great Britain 1998 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0-333-73145-X m First published in the United States of America 1998 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 0-312-21421-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hirai, Masako, 1949— Sisters in literature : female sexuality in Antigone, Middlemarch, Howards End, and Women in Love / Masako Hirai. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-312-21421-9 (cloth) 1. English fiction—History and criticism. 2. Sisters in literature. 3. Lawrence, D. H. (David Herbert), 1885-1936. Women in love. 4. Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan), 1879-1970. Howards End. 5. Eliot, George, 1819-1880. Middlemarch. 6. Sophocles. Antigone. 7. Women in literature. 8. Sex in literature. I. Title. PR888.S52H57 1998 823.009*352045—dc21 98-9219 CIP ©Masako Hirai 1998 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10 9 8 7 6 54 3 21 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire For my mother This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface and Acknowledgments x 1 Introduction 1 2 The Common Doom 8 The Split in the Novelists 8 Mothering the Artist 14 3 Reading Antigone 25 Antigone for George Eliot 25 Antigone and Eliot for D. H. Lawrence 28 Antigone and Eliot for E. M. Forster 31 Reading Antigone from the Sisters' Dialectic 35 4 Middlemarch: From Heroic Legend to Emotional History 41 Beginning with Legend: History as Narrowing Path 41 Juxtaposition: Images and Counter-Images 44 Dialogue: Passion vs. Common Sense 50 Disillusionment and Sexual Images 65 Ending with a Diminished Myth: an Emotive History 74 5 Howards End: From Letters to a Connecting Vision 77 Beginning with Letters: History as a Disconnected View 77 The Dilemma: Freedom and Discontinuity in Social and Sexual Myths 84 Dialogue: Poetry and Prose 88 Disillusion, Madness and Sexual Vision 103 The Language of the Wound: Woman's Body, Tree and House 111 Ending with an Image: House and Woman as Spirit 117 6 Women in Love (1): The Disruptive Style, its Images and Arguments 121 The First Scene: Tradition and the Gap 123 Wedding and Fashion: Social Act and the Inner Gap 132 Animal Imagery 136 vn Vlll Contents Contrast in Colours 138 Female Mystery and the Knowledge of the Artist 142 Changing Colours and the Other Mode of Being 144 From under the Mirror: the Inhuman Light 148 Passion for Debate and Death of Language 153 7 Women in Love (2): The Language Between 169 Between Purity and Shame 169 The Game of Death 175 The Knowing Adult vs. the Innocent Child 181 Art and Life: Ambiguities about the Rock 186 The Disruptive Form 190 Inversions in the Mirror: Parting and Attachment 194 The Sacrifice to 'Love' 202 Blood-brotherhood and the Death of Tragedy 207 Notes 211 Bibliography 216 Index 220 Page references given for the texts quoted are to the following editions: Antigone, edited by Andrew Brown, Aris and Phillips, 1987. Middlemarch, edited by Bert G. Hornback, Norton, 1977. Howards End, edited by Oliver Stallybrass, Arnold, 1973. Women in Love, edited by David Farmer, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, Cambridge, 1987.
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