![]() Recovering Spofford's work, have prefaced their remarks withĭisclaimers about her race politics. In "The Godmothers" (1896) fantasizes about a Nordic, feminineĪmerican ancestor, an "original savage," who erases U.S.Ĭolonial and expansionist history Feminist critics, in the process of Piece, concerns the captivity and metaphorical rape of a white woman byĪ wild animal known as the "Indian Devil." In "The Blackīess" (1868), the white male protagonist, a train conductor,Įxperiences nightmares in which his engine (Black Bess) is the Literary romanticism and, until recently, its study, have buried:Īgendas of colonization and expansionist imperialism mounted againstĮvidence of troubling race politics abounds in Spofford'sįiction: "Circumstance" (1860). Gods," I argue, makes visible those narratives that American Story resists and revises patriarchal and hegemonic romantic scriptsĮven as it complies with their racist agendas. "little Asian." Through the juxtaposition of these women, the Of-the troubling characterization of a woman of color, known merely as Heroine/narrator, Giorgione, with-indeed, perhaps even at the expense Marginalized nineteenth-century white, upper-middle-class Theories to consider how the story adva nces the perspective of its I use an approach informed by feminist and postcolonial Underpin not only Spofford's fiction but American literary (1860) enables our scrutiny of gender- and race-bound theories that Problem of Spofford's race politics offers a significant criticalĮntry into this enigmatic author's fiction specifically, anĪnalysis of Spofford's race politics in "The Amber Gods" Spofford's race politics? In this essay, I maintain that the Writer, "New Perspectives on Harriet Prescott Spofford." įollowing the panelists' presentations, a member of the audienceĪsked a question that seems central to this writer's fate inĪmerican literary studies: how might scholars and teachers assess Gods" and Other Stories, the first collection of Spofford'sįiction to appear in print for nearly a century), the Modern LanguageĪssociation included its first session on this nineteenth-century (seven years after Rutgers University Press published "The Amber To embrace this author as one of our own foremothers. Stake in contemporary Americanist and feminist scholars' reluctance Women's history and literary traditions seems to be what is at What language might they speak of it? Īppropriately or ironically, Spofford's concern with Literature, might women identify a usable past of their own? And with Traditions of expression might women draw on? How, in life and in Her stories seem to ask, what foremothers' (hi)stories and Like the postpartum vision of this protagonist, exhibits similarĪnxiety. Merely "paltry" but oppressed, "swamped, and drowned, andĮxtinguished." Much of Harriet Prescott Spofford's writing, "narrow routine" of woman's position their lives are not In this timid "flock of frightenedĭoves," she recognizes not individuality but merely obedience toĬulture's outward forms. Given birth, imagines the wan, disempowered, or absent histories of her In the above passage, Rosomond, an American expatriate who has just Harriet Prescott Spofford ("The Godmothers" 214) Whose goodness was negative, whose doings were paltry, their drab beings Routine, praying by form, acting by precedent, without individuality, Heaven, ladies of placid lives, no opportunities, small emotions, narrow Retrieved from įar off, by the curtain of the doorway, huddled together like aįlock of frightened doves-gentle ladies, quiet, timid, humble before APA style: Race, Romanticism, and the Politics of Feminist Literary Study: Harriet Prescott Spofford's 'The Amber Gods'.Race, Romanticism, and the Politics of Feminist Literary Study: Harriet Prescott Spofford's 'The Amber Gods'." Retrieved from 2001 University of Nebraska Press 07 Nov. MLA style: "Race, Romanticism, and the Politics of Feminist Literary Study: Harriet Prescott Spofford's 'The Amber Gods'." The Free Library.
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