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Where vwould you put Wuthering Heights? At 11:52 AM 1/12/2003 +0000, you wrote: >Alison's mention of the novel here is very apt, as, I think, there are more >clear examples of both successful and failed imaginative explorations of the >Other in that genre than in poetry, SuperPoet from the Planet Stratford >excepted (wink). > >Maybe Euripides too but let's be wary of Greeks for the moment. > >I am thinking here of whole catalogue of examples, just to mention a few: >Conrad was almost incapable of portraying a female character without >sentimentalisation, vide Nostromo, and Mrs Gould, with the singular >exception of Verloc's wife in The Secret Agent, which character I have >always had the suspicion ( a horrible one) is based on Conrad's own wife; >George Eliot could certainly portray male characters convincingly, except >when romantic interest was involved, then something would go oddly wrong, >her portrayals of supposedly male preserves like bar-rooms and horse-fairs >were also much more convincing than most male novelists of the time; James >Joyce The Prurient managed, despite his foibles, to give voice to women's >experience better than almost any novelist of the last century in the >Nausicca episode and of course Molly Bloom's soliloquy; while in Jane Austen >although the portrayals of males are limited by the bounds of the writer's >concerns within those limitations they are convincing, so the walking >marriage propositions and wise uncle-likes do succeed artistically as long >as one accepts the conventions. > >I also a remember a very fine novella by an Australian woman which is >profoundly concerned with feminine experience but switches in its last >chapter to a male narrator. I felt no disjunction in this but rather a >simultaneous sense of aesthetic pleasure and awareness of the heightened >dramatisation of the questions the book asks via this tactic. > >Best > >Dave > > > >David Bircumshaw > >Leicester, England > >Home Page > >A Chide's Alphabet > >Painting Without Numbers > >http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Alison Croggon" <[log in to unmask]> >To: <[log in to unmask]> >Sent: Sunday, January 12, 2003 12:13 PM >Subject: Re: Skivvy > > >Hurriedly - I remember years ago reading Madame Bovary, and being >knocked out by it; a wonderful portrayal of a woman being stifled, >from childhood on, of enormous sensitivity. I was always puzzled by >the division of sex in writing - that is, when I first fell over it >as a young woman - it never occurred to me that I couldn't imagine >being a man. What's an imagination for? It's the barriers of >imagination we ought to argue against - > >Best > >Alison > > > > >It has been said that a male could not have written the poem, > >now I'd mention here Anne Carson's 'Autobiography of Red', a sequence by a > >woman which deals with male homo-erotic desire and does so to my mind with > >considerable success. Likewise a male writer can speak in the female voice, > >if the writer has the imaginative capacity. > > > >_you_ said that Dave - I disagreed with you. And I think you have >clarified > >the elision here - being able to write in the voice of a man or a woman is > >one thing. Of course it is possible, though there are dangers and >pitfalls. > >The most glaring being the easy assumption that the poet knows all about >the > >other and can write from their position without ever having to question > >his/her own. > > > >But the assertiont that the resulting text could have been written by a man > >or a woman only makes sense if you completely erase gender from > >consciousness. Even DB cant do that I think! > > > >I have been following the discussions on gender through the whirlwind of > >this first week back at work - like others I am very grateful to Alison, > >Jill and Rebecca for articulating some thoughts that I am very much in > >agreement with. I particularly liked your comments about sub/dom in the >CAD > >Jill! > > > >Liz > >x > >-- > > > >Alison Croggon >Home page >http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/ > >Masthead Online >http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/