The Feminine Sublime Gender and Excess in Women's Fiction

"Freeman has subtly analyzed the gendered drama implicit in several classic theories of the sublime written by men, and then brilliantly paired each theoretical text with a novel written by a woman, a novel in which that theory, and that gendered drama, is enacted, exceeded, and critiqued. This is feminist literary theory at its best."—Barbara E. Johnson, author of The Wake of Deconstruction "An outstanding book. . . . Freeman's work is the first to link [the theme of empowerment] to the literary critique of the sublime, making possible the 'addition' of women to the list of English and American Romantic writers where they have been puzzlingly invisible."—Diane W. Middlebrook, author of Anne Sexton "Barbara Claire Freeman radically unmans the discourse of the sublime. She makes explicit the gendered, gendering, and degendered aspects of the traditional discussions of sublimity. The results of her inversive readings are exhilarating—new readings of texts that had been threatened by banalization from simplistic ideological misuse. A brilliant work!"—Hayden White, author of The Content of the Form