Deliberately out of bounds : women's work on classical myth in nineteenth-century American fiction / Michaela Keck.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 333-362).

Nymphs, maenads, goddesses, and heroines from classical myth populate nineteenth-century American women writers' fiction in exhilaratingly innovative, often multilayered and complex reconfigurations. Based on Hans Blumenberg's notion of artists' ongoing "work on myth" and Aby Warburg's concept of 'pathos formulae', this monograph explores the functions and meanings of these ancient figures in image and text. Examining novels by Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Lydia Maria Child, Elizabeth Stoddard, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and Louisa May Alcott, this study sheds light on the intellectual and aesthetic achievements of these American women writers across a range of genres. Furthermore, the book challenges the assumption that women's "work on myth" did not thrive until the second half of the nineteenth century and proposes an approach to overcome the persisting binary and gendered opposition between myth and logos as the 'feminine' body and the 'male' mind. Reihe American Studies - A Monograph Series - Band 282

Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on March 17, 2021).

Cover; Titel; Imprint; Table of Contents; Acknowledgments ; 1 Introduction: Classical Myth and Nineteenth-Century American Women's Fiction; 1.1 Women Writers' Innovative Work on Myth, 1800-1900 ; 1.2 Literature Review ; 2 Myth, ""Pathos Formulae"", and Women's Revisionist Mythmaking; 2.1 Working on Myth with Pathos Formulae ; 2.2 ""Pathos Formulae"" and the Polarity of the Symbol.

2.3 Deliberately Out of Bounds: Women's Work on Classical Myth 3 Dionysian Frenzies in Catharine Maria Sedgwick's A New- England Tale ; 3.1 Maenad-in-Motion ; 3.2 What Manner of Intoxication ; 3.2.1 Inspired to Love, Inspired to Live: Bet and Jane as True Dionysian Followers.

3.2.2 Apollo's Mission: Reward vs. Punishment 3.2.3 The Dionysian Frenzy of Everyday Life in Sedgwick's Social Canvas ; 3.3 The Artistic Layering of Sedgwick's Realist Mythology ; 4 The Trials of Psyche: Ancient Mysteries in Lydia Maria Child's Philothea -- 4.1 Deficient in Repose ; 4.2 Synthomorphosis and Metamorphosis in Philothea

4.2.1 Philothea and the Love of the Soul 4.2.2 Philothea and Sacred Marriage ; 4.2.3 Philothea, the Panathenaia, and Domestic Ideology; 4.2.4 From Eve to Psyche: Eudora's Temptation and Sophrosyne -- 4.2.5 Eudora's/Psyche's Ascent ; 4.3 The Language of the Ancient Mysteries ; 4.4 Philothea, Eudora, and the Archive of (Mental) Images.

5 Jason and the Sphinx: Elizabeth Stoddard's Discrepant New England Mythologies 5.1 The Writings of Elizabeth Stoddard ; 5.2 Stoddard's Two Men -- 5.3 Two Men, Two Jasons ; 5.3.1 Jason, Stranger among the Boston Brahmins ; 5.3.2 Parke, A High Culture Hero in Crisis.

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