From Goethe To Gide
Feminism, Aesthetics and the Literary Canon in France and Germany, 1770-1936

From Goethe to Gide brings together twelve essays on canonical male writers (six French and six German) commissioned from leading specialists from Britain and North America.

These essays, aimed at final year undergraduates and postgraduates, focus on Rousseau, Goethe, Schiller, Hoffmann, Stendhal, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Heine, Fontane, Zola, Kafka, Gide. The collection therefore foregrounds the major authors taught on British university BA courses in French and German. Working with the tools of feminist criticism, the authors demonstrate how feminist readings of these writings can illuminate far more than attitudes towards women.

Contributions by
Elizabeth Boa, Gail K. Hart, Robert C. Holub, Patricia Howe, Ann Jefferson, Rosemary Lloyd, Jann Matlock, Mary Orr, Ricarda Schmidt, Naomi Segal, Lesley Sharpe and Judith Still

 Preface, vii; List of Contributors, ix; Introduction, 1; 1 Errant Strivings: Goethe, Faust and the Feminist Reader Gail K. Hart, 7; 2 Hospitality and Sexual Difference in Rousseau's Confessions Judith Still, 22; 3 Gender and Genre: Schiller's Drama and Aesthetics Lesley Sharpe, 34; 4 Male Foibles, Female Critique and Narrative Capriciousness: On the Function of Gender in Conceptions of Art and Subjectivity in E.T.A. Hoffmann Ricarda Schmidt, 49; 5 Varieties of Female Agency in Stendhal Ann Jefferson, 65; 6 Heine's 'Madchen und Frauen': Women and Emancipation in the Writings of Heinrich Heine Robert C. Holub, 80; 7 Mundus Muliebris: Baudelaire's World of Women Rosemary Lloyd, 97; 8 Flaubert's Cautionary Tales and the Art of the Absolute Mary Orr Patricia Howe, 113. 10 Bodies in Crisis: Zola, Gender, and the Dilemmas of History Jann Matlock, 145; 11 Karl Rossmann, or the Boy who Wouldn't Grow Up: The Flight from Manhood in Kafka's Der Verschollene Elizabeth Boa, 168; 12 Andre Gide and the Making of the Perfect Child Naomi Segal, 184; Postscript, 199; Notes, 205; Bibliography of Secondary Literature; 1. General Works, 236; 2. Works on Specific Authors, 240; Index, 256.

Mary Orr is Professor of French at the University of Southampton. Her principal publications include: Flaubert’s Madame Bovary: Representations of the Masculine (Berne, 1999); Flaubert: Writing the Masculine (OUP, 2000). Lesley Sharpe is Professor of German at the University of Exeter. Her principal publications include: Friedrich Schiller: Drama, Thought and Politics (Cambridge, 1991); The Cambridge Companion to Goethe (Cambridge, 2002).