braveladyrobin: (Default)
Robin ([personal profile] braveladyrobin) wrote2005-01-25 01:23 pm

Feminine Romanticism?

I've been reading Anne Mellor's book, _Romanticism and Gender_. I'm learning a lot from it, seeing in new ways, but I'm having a problem with her basic premise. I agree that what we see as Romanticism is really based on the poetry of 6 men. And I agree that there was another tradition going on simultaneously. But it seems inappropriate to call this movement "feminine romanticism" as if it were simply a different aspect of romanticism. It seems more related to the French Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man than it is to Romance, which are tales set in distant times and places. Gothic is a sort of hybrid of the French humanism and Romance, I suppose.