American Madonna [[electronic resource] ] : images of the divine woman in literary culture / / John Gatta

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910778631403321
• Autore: Gatta John <1946->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: New York, : Oxford University Press, 1997
• ISBN: 0-19-773815-X; 1-280-45368-0; 0-19-535460-5; 9786610453689; 0-585-21172-8
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (192 p.)
• Collana: Religion in America series
• Disciplina: 810.9/351
• Soggetti: American literature - 19th century - History and criticism; American literature - Protestant authors - History and criticism; American literature - 20th century - History and criticism; Christianity and literature - United States; Women in literature; Femininity in literature; Women and literature - United States; Christian saints in literature
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-172) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: CONTENTS; INTRODUCTION; ONE: THE SACRED WOMAN: THE PROBLEM OF HAWTHORNE'S MADONNAS; TWO: THE VIRGINAL SOUL OF MARGARET FULLER'S Woman in the Nineteenth Century; THREE: CALVINISM FEMINIZED: DIVINE MATRIARCHY IN HARRIET BEECHER STOWE; FOUR: THE SEXUAL MADONNA IN HAROLD FREDERIC'S Damnation of Theron Ware; FIVE: HENRY ADAMS: THE VIRGIN AS DYNAMO; SIX: ELIOT'S ARCHETYPAL LADY OF SEA AND GARDEN: THE RECOVERY OF MYTH; EPILOGUE; APPENDIX: ""Raphael's Deposition from the Cross,"" by Margaret Fuller; ""Mary at the Cross"" and ""The Sorrows of Mary,"" by Harriet Beecher Stowe; Excerpt from ""The Golden Legend"" by Henry Wadsworth LongfNOTES; ; INDEX
• Sommario/riassunto: This book explores a notable if unlikely undercurrent of interest in Mary as mythical Madonna that has persisted in American life and letters from fairly early in the nineteenth century into the later twentieth. This imaginative involvement with the Divine Woman -- verging at times ondevotional homage -- is especially intriguing as manifested in the Protestant writers who are the focus of this study: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harold Frederic, Henry Adams, and T.S. Eliot. John Gatta argues that flirtation with the Marian cultus offeredProtestant writers symb