sistermagpie's review
4.0
I never read the original Madwoman in the Attic. In a sense, for me it was just a title that came up again and again, because the teacher of a college class I took in the English novel brought it up a lot--she was one of my favorite teachers (Joan Garrett Goodyear). While the original isn't so easy to find today, and I suspect would read like something of its time period, this book of essays gave me a very good idea of just how exciting the original was, how important and influencial.
If someone told the authors back in the 70s that this type of book would be written today, it would be exactly what they could have hoped. The writers of these essays freely disagree with the original, or point out where it's limited, but in a way that acknowledges the original book as the beginning of a conversation that might not have started otherwise. The pieces on Milton and Wuthering Heights, for instance, gave me a sense for the first time just how Madwoman changed the way these books were talked about or understood. It was especially fascinating, for instance, reading analysis of modern movie adaptations of Wuthering Heights refashioned to speak to a male reaction against certain feminist ideas.
This collection also brings forward women writers left out by the original, like Elizabeth Gaskell and Charlotte Yonge. It's understandable why they were left out of the original work, but these essays make the case for why their time has come to be included, making the original theories more nuanced and interesting. If the original Madwoman was primal and primative, as the authors admit, it nonetheless provided a strong basis for more sophisticated readings.
If someone told the authors back in the 70s that this type of book would be written today, it would be exactly what they could have hoped. The writers of these essays freely disagree with the original, or point out where it's limited, but in a way that acknowledges the original book as the beginning of a conversation that might not have started otherwise. The pieces on Milton and Wuthering Heights, for instance, gave me a sense for the first time just how Madwoman changed the way these books were talked about or understood. It was especially fascinating, for instance, reading analysis of modern movie adaptations of Wuthering Heights refashioned to speak to a male reaction against certain feminist ideas.
This collection also brings forward women writers left out by the original, like Elizabeth Gaskell and Charlotte Yonge. It's understandable why they were left out of the original work, but these essays make the case for why their time has come to be included, making the original theories more nuanced and interesting. If the original Madwoman was primal and primative, as the authors admit, it nonetheless provided a strong basis for more sophisticated readings.
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