Middlebrow matters : women's reading and the literary canon in France since the Belle Époque /
Holmes, Diana, 1949-
Middlebrow matters : women's reading and the literary canon in France since the Belle Époque / Diana Holmes. - 1 online resource (244 pages) - Contemporary French and francophone cultures ; 57 . - Contemporary French and francophone cultures. .
Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-237) and index.
Introduction -- Reclaiming the middlebrow -- The birth of French middlebrow -- Colette : the middlebrow modernist -- Interwar France : the case of the missing middlebrow -- The 'little world' of Françoise Sagan -- Literary prizes, women and the middlebrow -- Realism, romance and self-reflexivity : twenty-first-century middlebrow -- Conclusion : Marie NDiaye's femme puissante : a double reading.
Middlebrow is a derogatory word that connotes blandness, mediocrity and a failed aspiration to 'high' culture. However, when appropriated as a positive term to denote that wide swathe of literature between the challenging experimentalism of the high and the formulaic drive of the popular, it enables a rethinking of the literary canon from the point of view of what most readers actually read, a criterion curiously absent from dominant definitions of literary value. Since women have long formed a majority of the nation's reading public, this perspective immediately feminises what has always been a very male canon. Opening with a theorisation of the concept of middlebrow that mounts a defence of some literary qualities disdained by modernism, the book then focuses on a series of case studies of periods (the Belle Epoque, inter-war, early twenty-first century), authors (including Colette, Irene Nemirovsky, Francoise Sagan, Anna Gavalda) and the middlebrow nature of literary prizes.
1786941562 1786949520 9781786941565 9781786949523
102590 Knowledge Unlatched 22573/ctvt62fkn JSTOR
1900-1999
Feminism in literature.
French fiction--Women authors--History and criticism.
French fiction--History and criticism.--20th century
Social classes in literature.
Women and literature--History--France--20th century.
Women--Social conditions--France--20th century.
Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers.
LITERARY CRITICISM--European--French.
Feminism in literature.
French fiction--Women authors.
French fiction.
Social classes in literature.
Women and literature.
Women--Social conditions.
Literature.
France.
Electronic books.
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History.
PQ673 / .H65 2018eb
843.912099287
Middlebrow matters : women's reading and the literary canon in France since the Belle Époque / Diana Holmes. - 1 online resource (244 pages) - Contemporary French and francophone cultures ; 57 . - Contemporary French and francophone cultures. .
Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-237) and index.
Introduction -- Reclaiming the middlebrow -- The birth of French middlebrow -- Colette : the middlebrow modernist -- Interwar France : the case of the missing middlebrow -- The 'little world' of Françoise Sagan -- Literary prizes, women and the middlebrow -- Realism, romance and self-reflexivity : twenty-first-century middlebrow -- Conclusion : Marie NDiaye's femme puissante : a double reading.
Middlebrow is a derogatory word that connotes blandness, mediocrity and a failed aspiration to 'high' culture. However, when appropriated as a positive term to denote that wide swathe of literature between the challenging experimentalism of the high and the formulaic drive of the popular, it enables a rethinking of the literary canon from the point of view of what most readers actually read, a criterion curiously absent from dominant definitions of literary value. Since women have long formed a majority of the nation's reading public, this perspective immediately feminises what has always been a very male canon. Opening with a theorisation of the concept of middlebrow that mounts a defence of some literary qualities disdained by modernism, the book then focuses on a series of case studies of periods (the Belle Epoque, inter-war, early twenty-first century), authors (including Colette, Irene Nemirovsky, Francoise Sagan, Anna Gavalda) and the middlebrow nature of literary prizes.
1786941562 1786949520 9781786941565 9781786949523
102590 Knowledge Unlatched 22573/ctvt62fkn JSTOR
1900-1999
Feminism in literature.
French fiction--Women authors--History and criticism.
French fiction--History and criticism.--20th century
Social classes in literature.
Women and literature--History--France--20th century.
Women--Social conditions--France--20th century.
Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers.
LITERARY CRITICISM--European--French.
Feminism in literature.
French fiction--Women authors.
French fiction.
Social classes in literature.
Women and literature.
Women--Social conditions.
Literature.
France.
Electronic books.
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History.
PQ673 / .H65 2018eb
843.912099287