"During the last centuries of the Roman Empire, the prevailing ideal of feminine virtue was radically transformed: the pure but fertile heroines of Greek and Roman romance were replaced by a Christian heroine who ardently refused the marriage bed. How this new concept and figure…
"During the last centuries of the Roman Empire, the prevailing ideal of feminine virtue was radically transformed: the pure but fertile heroines of Greek and Roman romance were replaced by a Christian heroine who ardently refused the marriage bed. How this new concept and figure…
In this close reading of her fiction, Terence Wright shows how Mrs Gaskell's poetic realism illuminates human, and particularly female, psychology, including the need for self-creating values if women are to retain their integrity in a society which seeks to label them as 'angel…