RACE, ETHNICITY, AND THE VOICE OF THE "POETESS" IN THE LIVES AND WORKS OF FOUR LATE-NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN WOMEN POETS: FRANCES E. W. HARPER, EMMA LAZARUS, LOUISE GUINEY, AND ELLA WHEELER WILCOX (NINETEENTH CENTURY, HARPER FRANCES E. W. , LAZARUS EMMA, GUINEY LOUISE, WILCOX ELLA WHEELER).

Résumé du livre

The first chapter describes how the myth of the poetess developed alongside a growing acceptance of romanticism in mid-nineteenth-century America, and argues that similarities between romantic ideology and popular gender ideologies opened up a space in which mid-century white women could assert their presence as writers. By the end of the century, however, women poets began to lose their modicum of literary respect as aesthetic standards changed and characteristics which earlier critics had praised in