The Flesh Made Word: Female Figures and Women's Bodies

190 Pages·1990·10.86 MB·English

by  Helena Michie

The Flesh Made Word
This page intentionally left blank
The Flesh
Made Word
FEMALE FIGURES AND
WOMEN'S BODIES
HELENA MICHIE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRKSS
Oxford New York Toronto
Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi
Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo
Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town
Melbourne Auckland
and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
COPYRIGHT © 1987 BY OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, INC.
First published in 1987 by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1989
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Michie, Helena R.
The flesh made word.
Bibliography, p. Includes index.
i. English literature—igth century—History and criticism.
2. Women in literature. 3. Body, Human, in literature. 4. Women in art.
5. Painting, Victorian. I. Title.
PR469.W6$M5 1987 820'.9*352042 86-5351
ISBN 0-19-504107-0
ISBN 0-19-506081-4 (PBK.)
From "Menstruation at Forty" in LIVE OR DIE by Anne Sexton.
Copyright © 1966 by Anne Sexton. Reprinted by permission of
Houghton Mifflin Company.
2468109753 i
Printed in the United States of America
To my mother,
who chose my first books
and in memory of my father,
who helped me choose my first words.
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgments
This was written with the support and encouragement of many
people. I would especially like to thank Nina Auerbach, whose
magic can turn faulty Xerox copies of Pre-Raphaelite paintings
into full-color pictures of Victorian women and the moons that
haunt them. Thanks also to Elaine Scarry whose work on the body
is as inspirational as her support of this project.
I would finally like to acknowledge my enormous debt to Judith
Levin and Colleen Lamos whose conversations and comments
made this work—and any work—possible.
David DeLaura, Houston Baker, and Ellen Pollak read early ver-
sions of the manuscript and commented generously. I am grateful
to Oxford University Press for, among other things, assigning this
manuscript to a reader as lucid and careful as Margaret Homans.
My heartfelt thanks to Joan Maruyama, Helen Healy, Susan Al-
len, and William Flesch for their typing, proofreading, and com-
pilation.
It is with great affection that I thank my uncle, Dr. Leopold
Wienick for his books and his wisdom in searching out Pre-
Raphaelite art, and Scott Derrick for turning days of writing into
days of feasting.
February 1986 H.R.M.
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Introduction: Constructing the Frame, 3
CHAPTER I
Ladylike Anorexia: Hunger, Sexuality, and Etiquette, 1212
CHAPTER II
Becoming Public Women: Women and Work, 30 30
CHAPTER III
Calling and Falling: Vocation and Prostitution, 5959
CHAPTER IV
Body, Figure, Embodiment:
The Paradoxes of Heroine Description, 79
CHAPTER v
Re-membering the Body:
Feminist Theory and Representation, 124
NOTES, 151
BIBLIOGRAPHY, 167
INDEX, 175