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From Percy Shelley and Jane Austen to Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf, Ruth Vanita uncovers layers of love between women in a sophisticated and provocative rereading of English Literature. She demonstrates that love between women has long formed an enriching and enabling component of both male and female writing. Synthesizing centuries of literature, criticism and mythology, she shifts the critical focus from marginalization of women to their empowerment as literary ancestors. She delineates the formation of alternative families in Meredith, Forster and Vikram Seth, refuting conventional theories of the invisibility of the ‘queer’. Investigating the hidden ‘Protestant bias’ and male bias that have led thinkers such as Freud and Foucault to Disregard Sapphic presence in western culture from the medieval period onwards, Vanita challenges many theoretical and cultural assumptions regarding gay and lesbian studies. Her historically sensitive approach makes this a very valuable contribution to queer, literary and cultural studies.
Same-Sex Love and the English Literary Imagination is a must for any reader interested in the play of gender and sexuality in nineteenth and twentieth century English LiteratureISBN 9788131708330
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