Ruskin and Gender

by Dinah Birch, Francis O'Gorman

Overview

For many years Ruskin has seemed, at best, a conservative thinker on gender roles. At worst, his lecture On Queens' Gardens from Sesame and Lilies was read as a locus classicus of Victorian patriarchal oppression. These essays challenge such assumptions, presenting a wide-ranging revaluation of Ruskin's place in relation to gender, and offering new perspectives on continuing debates on issues of gender - in the Victorian period, and in our own.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781349428908
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	05/20/2002
Edition description:	1st ed. 2002
Pages:	211
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.02(d)

About the Author

JOSEPH BRISTOW Professor of English, University of California, Los Angeles J.B. BULLEN Professor of English, University of Reading EMILY EELLS Maître de conférences, English Department, University of Paris X, Nanterre LINDA H. PETERSON Professor of English, Yale University CATHERINE ROBSON Associate Professor of English, University of California, Davis LINDSAY SMITH Professor of English, University of Sussex SHARON ARONOFSKY WELTMAN Associate Professor of English, Louisiana State University

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors Textual Note Introduction: D.Birch & F.O'Gorman Manliness and The History of Ruskin In Love: Writing Ruskin's Masculinity From W.G. Collingwood to Kate Millett; F.O'Gorman The Stones of Childhood: Ruskin's Lost Jewels ; C.Robson The Foxglove and the Rose: Ruskin's Involute of Childhood; L.Smith Ruskin, Gautier, and the Feminization of Venice; J.B. Bullen The Feminist Origins of 'Of Queens' Gardens'; L.H.Peterson Ruskin's Womanly Mind ; D.Birch 'What Teachers Do You Give Your Girls'? Ruskin and Women's Education; D.Birch 'Any Day That You're a Good Boy': Ruskin's Patronage, Rossetti's Expectations; J.Bristow Pantomime Truth and Gender Performance: John Ruskin on Theatre; S.A.Weltman Images of Proustian Inversion from Ruskin; E.Eells Selected Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

To modern readers, Ruskin has seemed at best a conservative thinker on gender roles. The essays in this volume challenge this idea, discussing Ruskin's involvements with women's education, his relation with dominant models of masculinity, the gendered nature of his reading of Venice, his feminized images of childhood, and his responses to the performativity of gender on stage. is placed in the context of early Victorian feminism, and other essays consider his relations with the painter Rossetti and his influence on Proust's concepts of homosexuality. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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