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Women of the Left Bank : Paris, 1900-1940

by Benstock, Shari, 1944-

Format: Print Book 1986
Availability: Available at 1 Library 1 of 1 copy

Available (1)
Location Collection Call #
CLP - Main Library Second Floor - Non-fiction PS151 .B46 1986
Location  CLP - Main Library
 
Collection  Second Floor - Non-fiction
 
Call Number  PS151 .B46 1986
 
 

Summary
Now available in a durable paperback edition, Shari Benstock's critically acclaimed, best-selling Women of the Left Bank is a fascinating exploration of the lives and works of some two dozen American, English, and French women whose talent shaped the Paris expatriate experience in the century's early years. This ambitious historical, biographical, and critical study has taken its place among the foremost works of literary criticism. Maurice Beebe calls it a distinguished contribution to modern literary history. Jane Marcus hails it as the first serious literary history of the period and its women writers, making along the way no small contribution to our understanding of the relationships between women artists and their male counterparts, from Henry James to Hemingway, Joyce, Picasso, and Pound.
Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "This is a frustrating book, because its strengths, which include an imaginative and sympathetic approach to the literary work done by women and a tolerance for idiosyncratic sexual conduct and belief, are occasionally exaggerated into defects: an uncritical exaggeration of certain writers' importance and a tendency to ridicule authors, such as Hemingway, who embody what might be seen as an opposite viewpoint. Benstock covers material readers have traditionally found fascinating: the life of expatriates in Paris before World War II. She concentrates, however, on the work of women, as writers, patrons, editors, publishers, and as the material for art or the companion of artists. To insist upon the importance of women previously undervalued and to question the contributions of literary bigshots like Pound and Joyce (without indulging in careless criticism) is very hard work, and occasionally Benstock is not equal to it. When women's homosexuality is discussed, for example, it is with gentleness and acceptance, but when the issue of Hemingway's latent homosexuality is raised, Benstock loses her sense of perspective, becoming almost catty. While this book is well worth reading, it lacks the authority that comes only from the most scrupulous effort at impartiality. Bibliography; to be indexed. PM. 810'.9 American literature Women authors History and criticism / English literature Women authors History and criticism / Women authors, American France Paris Biography / Women authors, English France Paris Biography / Publishers and publishing France Paris History 20th century / Left Bank (Paris, France) Intellectual life / Feminism and literature 86-4124"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "The expatriate experience for American literati in Paris in the earlier part of this century is usually associated with male writers such as Hemingway, Joyce and Pound. In a reassessment of the period and the prevailing one-sided view of it, Benstock, editor of the journal Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, presents the women who left their enduring mark on the cultural milieu of a nation. Through their writings, including unpublished and newly available documentary sources of the period, Djuna Barnes, Nancy Cunard, Jean Rhys, Gertrude Stein, Edith Wharton and others are revealed as significant in the development of modernism, imagism and other avant-garde movements in which they were overshadowed or ignored by their male counterparts. Not only were their experiences different from those of their male counterparts, but they were also distinct from each other. Benstock tracks the sexually liberated lifestyles and the creative originality of these women with a wealth of documentation. (December) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved"
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Additional Information
Subjects American literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism.
American literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
English literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism.
English literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
Women authors, American -- France -- Paris -- Biography.
Women authors, English -- France -- Paris -- History -- 20th century.
Publishers and publishing -- France -- Paris -- History -- 20th century.
Americans -- France -- Paris.
British -- France -- Paris.
Women -- France -- Paris.
Modernism (Literature)
Feminism and literature -- France -- Paris.
Rive gauche (Paris, France) -- Intellectual life.
Paris (France) -- Intellectual life -- 20th century.
Publisher Austin :University of Texas Press,1986
Edition 1st ed.
Language English
Notes Includes index.
Description xi, 518 pages, 33 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
Bibliography Notes Bibliography: pages 479-508.
ISBN 0292790295
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