Book contents
- Scottish Women’s Writing in the Long Nineteenth Century
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth‐Century Literature And Culture
- Scottish Women’s Writing in the Long Nineteenth Century
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Oliphant, Scott, and the Novelist’s Trade
- Chapter 2 Annie S. Swan’s Friendly Fiction
- Chapter 3 The Scottish New Woman and the Art of Self-Sacrifice
- Chapter 4 The Colonial Adventure Story and the Return of Romance
- Chapter 5 Scottish Modernism and Middlebrow Aesthetics
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
Conclusion
The Ethics and Politics of Transfiguring the Commonplace
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 July 2021
- Scottish Women’s Writing in the Long Nineteenth Century
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth‐Century Literature And Culture
- Scottish Women’s Writing in the Long Nineteenth Century
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Oliphant, Scott, and the Novelist’s Trade
- Chapter 2 Annie S. Swan’s Friendly Fiction
- Chapter 3 The Scottish New Woman and the Art of Self-Sacrifice
- Chapter 4 The Colonial Adventure Story and the Return of Romance
- Chapter 5 Scottish Modernism and Middlebrow Aesthetics
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
Summary
Conclusion: Awareness of the romance of everyday life did not disappear from Scottish women’s writing with the advent of the First World War. A concern with magnificence of the mundane continues to illuminate a range of mid-century fiction, from D. E. Stevenson’s popular romances to Muriel Spark’s postmodern novels. The persistence of Scottish women writers’ interest in the romance of everyday life has been met with a similarly persistent devaluation of their work on the grounds of its supposed triviality. In the place of depth, originality, and complexity, Scottish women writers offer comfort, fortification, and pleasure – affective qualities that scholars and critics have largely forgotten about. They suggest that awareness of the beauty and wonder of everyday life is an important skill to cultivate because it is not an instrumental or goal-oriented practice: the experience is its own end.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Scottish Women's Writing in the Long Nineteenth CenturyThe Romance of Everyday Life, pp. 180 - 186Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021