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THE OXFORD COMPANION TO WOMEN'S
WRITING IN THE UNITED STATES
Edited by CATHY N. DAVIDSON and
LINDA WAGNER-MARTIN
"An indispensable research tool for Americanists and feminist
scholars" —Elaine Showalter. "First-rate as a reference text and is
a book to browse, incredibly well informed and readable at the
same time"—Jane Tompkins. "Comprehensive, well-written, and
invaluable... how did I live without it"—Rita Mae Brown. "A
veritable pifiata of scholarly treats...not only authoritative and up
to date, but full of surprising bonuses in the form of compact
mini-essays on everything from Backlash to Ranting, from
Grandmothers to Rape"—Alix Kates Shulman. "We have here the
indispensable guide to the history, accomplishments, themes and
theories of women's writings in the United States, from colonial
beginnings to the present. Every entry is a goldmine of insight
and information"—Annette Kolodny.
$45.00, 928 pp
WOMEN IN THE CLASSICAL WORLD
ELAINE FANTHAM, HELENE PEET FOLEY, NATALIE
BOYMEL KAMPEN, SARAH B. POMEROY, and
H.A. SHAPIRO
"Spanning a thousand years of ancient history, this path-breaking
study of women in classical antiquity sets a new and long-awaited
standard in the field for its range and breadth of vision, its skillful
blend of texts and artistic monuments of every sort, and its
remarkably intelligent presentation and commentary. The expert
collaborators have shaped a volume that is informed throughout
by the latest scholarship of women in Greece and Rome but
makes its rich and fascinating array of material accessible to any
and all readers. A monumental and enduring achievement"
—Froma I. Zeitlin, Charles Ewing Professor of Greek Language
and Literature, Princeton University. "An exciting and invaluable
synthesis of visual and literary materials, a triumph, in sum, of
scholarship and analysis"—Booklist.
$35.00, 430 pp.
GODDESS
Myths of the Female Divine
DAVID LEEMING and JAKE PAGE
"Based on thorough scholarship and written with enviable elan,
this book retells the myths of the ancient worship of female procreativity
with clarity and passion"—Paul Bohannan. This
enchanting and powerful collection brings together 75 tales, legends,
and folk beliefs, in a unique biography of the Goddess, from
prehistory to the present.
$22.00, 240 pp.
THE OXFORD BOOK OF MODERN WOMEN'S
STORIES
Edited by PATRICIA CRAIG
Here is a sweeping anthology of women's writing in the 20th
century, featuring stories by over forty contributors, including
Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, Willa Cather, Katherine Anne
Porter, Eudora Welty, Mary McCarthy, Muriel Spark, Flannery
O'Connor, Cynthia Ozick, Margaret Atwood, Fay Weldon,
Alice Munro, and Amy Tan.
$25.00, 610 pp.
At better bookstores. To charge, 1-800-451-7556 (M-F, 9-5 EST)
II X I II I! II U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S
Cruel and silly are, by comparison,
compliments. "I would gladly give half
the wit with which I am credited for
half the beauty you possess," wrote
Madame de Stael to Madame
Recamier. "I am so plain," sighed Jane
Eyre. "A used-up article," Harriet
Beecher Stowe wrote of herself,
"never much to look at." And after a
new arrangement of her hair, George
Eliot complained: "Uglier than ever."
The Massys Ugly Duchess, hanging
around my mind, began to symbolize
women's worries about their looks,
especially their worries when no
longer young and nubile. She began to
represent the fruitless effort to beautify
and the mockery it invites. I began to
wonder whether anyone in 16th-century
Flanders had responded to the
simper of this willful old flirt.
I discovered that the Ugly Duchess
never lived in Flanders. She never lived
in any country other than the imagination.
She had no physical existence.
She wasn't even invented by Quentin
Massys. She was created by Leonardo
da Vinci in a drawing that purportedly
was an anonymous study of the
grotesque. Grotesque!—worse even
than ugly. Then came the Massys painting,
then an engraving by the Bohemian
etcher Wenceslaus Hollar, and finally
the drawings of John Tenniel.
However unreal, my Duchess had a
significant career as an artist's model,
as painter copied drawing and
engraver copied painting. I still see her
around. I see the determination in the
Massys portrait on game old ladies
who shrug off the granny uniforms
society would have them wear, and go
gaudy instead. I see the fatigued grimace
of the Duchess in the Tenniel
kitchen on harried women on buses
and trains, who hold squalling children
on their laps. And the overeager
grin that the Duchess gave Alice at the
croquet game shows up on unglamorous
women at parties who refuse to
be ignored, talk a little too much, and,
if left standing alone, look not angry
or surprised, but only a bit underappreciated.
But then we Duchesses straighten
our backs, check our nails, remember
to smile, and soldier on. •
Edith Pearlman, a short story writer and
essayist, has received two O. Henry prizes,
two PEN awards, and two citations from
Best American Short Stories.
30 ON THE ISSUES WINTER 1995