Masochistic Pleasures of Sentimental Literature
For generations, critics have noticed in nineteenth-century American women''s sentimentality a streak of masochism, but their discussions of it have over-simplified its complex relationship to women''s power. Marianne Noble argues that tropes of eroticized domination in sentimental literature must be recognized for what they were: a double-edged sword of both oppression and empowerment. She begins...
For generations, critics have noticed in nineteenth-century American women''s sentimentality a streak of masochism, but their discussions of it have over-simplified its complex relationship to women''s power. Marianne Noble argues that tropes of eroticized domination in sentimental literature must be recognized for what they were: a double-edged sword of both oppression and empowerment. She begins...
