Masculinity and Gossip in Anne Brontë's Tenant

2009/09/01 by Priti Joshi · 7 citations
Arts and Humanities · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Medicine · Psychology · #Cultural Studies and Interdisciplinary Research #Ayn Rand and Brontë studies #Historical and Scientific Studies #Masculinity #Gossip #Sociology #Art #Psychology #Gender studies #Social psychology

paper · doi:10.1353/sel.0.0079

published in Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 49(4), 907-924 (Johns Hopkins University Press)

openalex publication_date 2009/09/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/28

Abstract

This paper examines Anne Brontë's novel against debates about women and women's influence. It argues that Brontë forges a middle ground between Mary Wollstonecraft and Hannah More, rejecting not only the former's repudiation of women's culture but also the latter's aggrandizement of women's influence. Brontë exposes some of the most dearly held fictions of femininity, even as she sympathetically explores its engagement with the production of a "new masculinity." To this end, she offers the very "feminine" behavior of "gossip" or "idle chat," rather than women themselves, as a tool to rehabilitate men who are drawn to a hypermasculine culture of violence.

Cited by

• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall [wikipedia]

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