Soft Canons American Women Writers

Annotation In spite of the recovery of numerous women writers and the reconceptualizations of American literature in the past twenty years, literary criticism has been slow to bring nineteenth-century male and female writers, so-called masculine and feminine traditions, together in dialogue. Addressing these separate spheres of criticism, the sixteen original essays in Soft Canons establish and complicate literary genealogies as they explore connections, discuss mutual influences, and propose theories of difference and alliance to create a richly textured account of the period.