Ostman Kate Chopin and Catholicism

1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-3-030-44022-0
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 229 Seiten, eBook

Reihe: Progress in Mathematics

This book explores the Catholic aesthetic and mystical dimensions in KateChopin’s fiction within the context of an evolving American Catholicism in thelate nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through a close reading of her novels and numerous short stories, Kate Chopin and Catholicism looks at the ways Chopin represented Catholicism in her work as a literary device that servedon multiple levels: as an aesthetic within local color depictions of Louisiana, as atrope for illuminating the tensions surrounding nineteenth-century women’sstruggles for autonomy, as a critique of the Catholic dogma that subordinatedauthenticity and physical and emotional pleasure, and as it pointed to thedistinction between religious doctrine and mystical experience, and enabled thearticulation of spirituality beyond the context of the Church. This book revealsChopin to be not only a literary visionary but a writer who saw divinity in thenatural world.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ostman, Heather

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction.- 2. Chopin and Catholicism in America, 1850-1904.- 3. Social and Religious Critique and Transformation through the Short Fiction.- 4. “Catholic Modernism” and the Short Stories.- 5.  At Fault : Catholic Doctrine and Social Issues.- 6.  The Awakening : Challenging Authority and Rewriting Women’s Spirituality.- 7. Mysticism in Chopin’s Fiction.- 8. Conclusion.

Über Autor(innen)

Heather Ostman is Professor of English and Director of the Humanities Institute at SUNY Westchester Community College. She is President of the Kate Chopin International Society, and her books include Kate Chopin in Context: New Critical Essays (2015), Kate Chopin in the Twenty-First Century (2008), The Fiction of Junot Díaz: Reframing the Lens (2016), and Writing Program Administration and the Community College (2013).