Research Catalog

Title

The reader's repentance : women preachers, women writers, and nineteenth-century social discourse / Christine L. Krueger.

Author

Krueger, Christine L.

Publication

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 350 pages; 23 cm

Summary

"A woman preaching is like a dog walking on its hind legs," Dr. Johnson pronounced. "It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." The prejudice embodied in this remark has persisted over time, impeding any proper assessment of the female preaching tradition and its role in shaping social and literary discourse. The Reader's Repentance recovers this tradition, and in doing so revises the history of nineteenth-century women's writing. Christine L. Krueger persuasively argues that Evangelical Christianity, by assuming the spiritual equality of women and men and the moral superiority of middle class women, opened a space for the linguistic empowerment of women and fostered the emergence of women orators and writers who, in complex and contradictory ways, became powerful public figures. In the light of unpublished or long out-of-print writing by eighteen and nineteenth century women preachers, Krueger shows how these women drew on religious language to critique forms of male domination, promote female political power, establish communities of women, and, most significantly, feminize social discourse. She traces the legacy of these preachers through the work of writers as diverse as Hannah More, Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, Elizabeth Gaskell, and George Eliot - women who, despite political differences, shared an evangelical strategy for placing women's concerns on the social agenda of their time. Documenting and analyzing the tradition of women's preaching as a powerful and distinctly feminist force in the development of nineteenth-century social fiction, The Reader's Repentance reconstitutes a significant chapter in the history of women and culture. This original work will be of interest to students of women's history, literature, and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century society.

Subjects

• Women and literature
• Literature and society
• English fiction
• 1800-1899
• History
• Criticism, interpretation, etc
• Englisch
• England
• Großbritannien
• Great Britain
• Geschichte (1800-1900)
• Roman
• Frauenliteratur
• Frau
• Predigt
• Romanschriftstellerin
• Predigerin
• Social problems in literature
• Preaching in literature
• Didactic fiction, English > History and criticism
• English fiction > 19th century > History and criticism
• Women and literature > Great Britain > History > 19th century
• Literature and society > Great Britain > History > 19th century
• English fiction > Women authors > History and criticism
• Women clergy > Great Britain

Genre/Form

• Criticism, interpretation, etc.
• History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 333-341) and index.

Contents

"Wise and holy women" : the Methodist women preachers -- The community of women of the word -- Mothers in Israel : preachers in the patriarchy -- Speaking in tongues : the rhetoric of the women preachers -- Publishing the word -- Social prophet : Hannah More as political writer -- Preaching fiction : the contribution of Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna -- The evangelist of reconciliation : Elizabeth Gaskell -- The extraordinary prophet : George Eliot.

ISBN

• 0226454886
• 9780226454887

LCCN

92005418

OCLC

• ocm25551827
• 25551827
• SCSB-14512932

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library