White Goddesses and Dark Ladies: Divided Female Consciousness in 19th Century English Literature

FAIN: FB-12936-76

Carol Ann Daeley
Austin College (Sherman, TX 75090-4440)

To explore how literature of the 19th century develops and portrays women as being ethereal goddesses or power hungry temptress, and what some of the implications of the division are. Much of the literature of the period is influenced and shaped by attitudes toward women whether a specific writer believes in the existence of Ideal Woman or questions the very basis of the ideal.