ABSTRACT

"Women, Genre and Circumstance brings together a series of challenging essays which explore the complex intersections of feminism, narrative and genre. Drawing on a wide range of 19th and 20th century texts novels, short stories and films they interrogate the relationship between womens situation and writing practice, and representations of history, memory, love, old age; they pursue questions of narrative form and its meanings, particularly the distinctive features of the short story. The politics of feminist criticism and careful attention to the operations of narrative combine in a sustained exploration of the aesthetics and ethics of fictional practices, and their role in the negotiation of gender and circumstance. The essays were written as tributes to the leading feminist scholar Elizabeth Fallaize. The contributors are Margaret Atack, Colin Davis, Suzanne Dow, Alison Finch, Diana Holmes, Diana Knight, Michele Le Doeuff, Toril Moi, Gill Rye, Judith Still, and Ursula Tidd."

chapter |4 pages

Introduction

Edited ByMargaret Atack, Diana Holmes, Diana Knight, Judith Still

chapter 1|4 pages

Elizabeth Fallaize: French Scholar

ByMargaret Atack

part I|49 pages

Simone de Beauvoir

chapter 3|5 pages

1947 and the Discovery of International Life

ByMichèle Le Doeuff

chapter 4|13 pages

Beauvoir and Love

BySuzanne Dow

chapter 5|13 pages

Simone de Beauvoir and the Uses of Memory

ByUrsula Tidd

part II|36 pages

The Short Story

chapter 6|14 pages

Balzac’s Honorine, or, The Rape of the Independent Woman

ByDiana Knight

chapter 7|10 pages

Being Human: Georges Simenon's ‘L'Homme dans la rue'

ByColin Davis

chapter 8|10 pages

The ‘Stab' of Short-Story Endings

ByAlison Finch

part III|41 pages

Women and Circumstance

chapter 9|13 pages

Renée Vivien's 'La Dame à la louve' and the Freedom to Choose 1

ByJudith Still

chapter 10|13 pages

New Representations and Politics of Procreation

Surrogate Motherhood, Artificial Insemination and Human Cloning in Contemporary Women's Writing in France
ByGill Rye

chapter 11|13 pages

Dealing with What is Dealt: Feminists and Ageing

ByDiana Holmes

part |8 pages

Coda

chapter 12|7 pages

Women's Time: Simone de Beauvoir and the Independent Woman

ByElizabeth Fallaize