Women and British Aestheticism edited by Talia Schaffer and Kathy Alexis Psomiades

Contents
Editors
Related Links
To Order

Women and British Aestheticism

Edited by Talia Schaffer and Kathy Alexis Psomiades

320 pages, 3 b&w illus. • 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Cloth ISBN 0-8139-1892-8 $68.50 • Paper ISBN 0-8139-1925-8 $24.50

This collection of essays introduces new scholarship on the women novelists, poets, fiction writers, essayists, lifestyle experts, and critics who played a central and long-forgotten role in the history of aestheticism, the late nineteenth-century movement associated with "art for art's sake." Recovering the work of these women recasts aestheticism as a powerful and widespread cultural movement rather than the product of a few elite men. Aesthetic women were not just mystical models in jewel-toned draperies or passive consumers of blue china; they were remarkably sophisticated writers, such as Marie Corelli, Christina Rossetti, Virginia Woolf, and Gertrude Jekyll, engaged in challenging their own objectification and formulating new theories of art. These essays show how aestheticism offered both men and women a set of concepts and a vocabulary through which issues of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, exoticism, nature, the modern, economic productivity, commodity culture, mass culture, and high culture could be addressed.

Contents

I. Fin-de-Siècle Fiction

"Debating Aestheticism from a Feminist Perspective," Margaret D. Stetz, Georgetown University

"Connoisseurship and Concealment in Sir Richard Calmady: Lucas Malet's Strategic Aestheticism," Talia Schaffer, San Francisco State University

"New Women and 'Old' Men: Gendering Degeneration," Lisa K. Hamilton, University of California-Los Angeles

"Marie Corelli: Aestheticism in Suburbia," Annette R. Federico, James Madison University

II. Aesthetic Poetry

"Whose Body? Christina Rossetti and Aestheticist Femininity," Kathy Alexis Psomiades, University of Notre Dame

"Feminizing Decadence: Poems by Graham R. Tomson," Linda K. Hughes, Texas Christian University

"Decadent Exoticism and the Woman Poet," Edward Marx, Kyoto University

III. Aesthetic Prose

"The Aesthetic in the Natural: Gertrude Jekyll's Garden Writing," Barbara T. Gates, University of Delaware

"Aestheticism's True Colors: The Politics of Pigment in Victorian Art, Criticism, and Fashion," Alison Victoria Matthews, Stanford University

"Countering a Counterpoetics: Ada Leverson and Oscar Wilde," Margaret Debelius, Princeton University

"Engaging 'Delicate Brains': From Working-Class Enculturation to Upper-Class Lesbian Liberation in Vernon Lee and Kit Anstruther-Thomson's Psychological Aesthetics," Diana Maltz, University of California-Los Angeles

IV. Aestheticism into the Modern

"Netta Syrett's Aestheticization of Everyday Life: Countering the 'Counterdiscourse' of Aestheticism," Ann Ardis, University of Delaware

"The Forest beyond the Frame: Picturing Women's Desires in Vernon Lee and Virginia Woolf," Dennis Denisoff, University of Waterloo

"Productive Bodies, Pleasured Bodies: On Victorian Aesthetics," Regenia Gagnier, University of Exeter

The Editors

Talia Schaffer is Assistant Professor of English at San Francisco State University.

Kathy Alexis Psomiades is Associate Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame.

Related Links

Women and British Aestheticism
Edited by Talia Schaffer and Kathy Alexis Psomiades
320 pages, 3 b&w illus. • 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Cloth ISBN 0-8139-1892-8 $68.50 • Paper ISBN 0-8139-1925-8 $24.50

http://www.upress.virginia.edu/schaffer_psomiades.html

Revised 10/1/07

Contents Editors Related Links To Order		Women and British Aestheticism
		Edited by Talia Schaffer and Kathy Alexis Psomiades
		320 pages, 3 b&w illus. • 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
		Cloth ISBN 0-8139-1892-8 $68.50 • Paper ISBN 0-8139-1925-8 $24.50
		This collection of essays introduces new scholarship on the women novelists, poets, fiction writers, essayists, lifestyle experts, and critics who played a central and long-forgotten role in the history of aestheticism, the late nineteenth-century movement associated with "art for art's sake." Recovering the work of these women recasts aestheticism as a powerful and widespread cultural movement rather than the product of a few elite men. Aesthetic women were not just mystical models in jewel-toned draperies or passive consumers of blue china; they were remarkably sophisticated writers, such as Marie Corelli, Christina Rossetti, Virginia Woolf, and Gertrude Jekyll, engaged in challenging their own objectification and formulating new theories of art. These essays show how aestheticism offered both men and women a set of concepts and a vocabulary through which issues of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, exoticism, nature, the modern, economic productivity, commodity culture, mass culture, and high culture could be addressed.
		Contents
		I. Fin-de-Siècle Fiction "Debating Aestheticism from a Feminist Perspective," Margaret D. Stetz, Georgetown University "Connoisseurship and Concealment in Sir Richard Calmady: Lucas Malet's Strategic Aestheticism," Talia Schaffer, San Francisco State University "New Women and 'Old' Men: Gendering Degeneration," Lisa K. Hamilton, University of California-Los Angeles "Marie Corelli: Aestheticism in Suburbia," Annette R. Federico, James Madison University II. Aesthetic Poetry "Whose Body? Christina Rossetti and Aestheticist Femininity," Kathy Alexis Psomiades, University of Notre Dame "Feminizing Decadence: Poems by Graham R. Tomson," Linda K. Hughes, Texas Christian University "Decadent Exoticism and the Woman Poet," Edward Marx, Kyoto University III. Aesthetic Prose "The Aesthetic in the Natural: Gertrude Jekyll's Garden Writing," Barbara T. Gates, University of Delaware "Aestheticism's True Colors: The Politics of Pigment in Victorian Art, Criticism, and Fashion," Alison Victoria Matthews, Stanford University "Countering a Counterpoetics: Ada Leverson and Oscar Wilde," Margaret Debelius, Princeton University "Engaging 'Delicate Brains': From Working-Class Enculturation to Upper-Class Lesbian Liberation in Vernon Lee and Kit Anstruther-Thomson's Psychological Aesthetics," Diana Maltz, University of California-Los Angeles IV. Aestheticism into the Modern "Netta Syrett's Aestheticization of Everyday Life: Countering the 'Counterdiscourse' of Aestheticism," Ann Ardis, University of Delaware "The Forest beyond the Frame: Picturing Women's Desires in Vernon Lee and Virginia Woolf," Dennis Denisoff, University of Waterloo "Productive Bodies, Pleasured Bodies: On Victorian Aesthetics," Regenia Gagnier, University of Exeter
		The Editors
		Talia Schaffer is Assistant Professor of English at San Francisco State University. Kathy Alexis Psomiades is Associate Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame.
		Related Links


		Women and British Aestheticism Edited by Talia Schaffer and Kathy Alexis Psomiades 320 pages, 3 b&w illus. • 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 Cloth ISBN 0-8139-1892-8 $68.50 • Paper ISBN 0-8139-1925-8 $24.50
		http://www.upress.virginia.edu/schaffer_psomiades.html
		Revised 10/1/07