Penelope's Web: Gender, Modernity, H. D.'s Fiction (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture) [Hardcover]

Susan Stanford Friedman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 22, 1991 | ISBN-10: 0521255791 | ISBN-13: 978-0521255790

Penelope's Web should appeal to a wide spectrum of readers interested in twentieth-century modernism, women's writing, feminist criticism, post-structuralist theory, psychoanalysis, autobiography, and women's studies. It is the first book to examine fully the brilliantly innovative prose writings of H.D., the pen-name for Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), who has been known primarily as a poet. Her prose, more personal, experimental, and postmodern than her poetry, raises central questions about the relation of women writers to language, desire, and history. She suppressed in her lifetime many of these texts because of their daring exploration of her bisexuality and their radical critique of the social order. H.D.'s prose writings contribute importantly to the many histories and theories of modernism that are redrawing boundaries to include the achievement of women writers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The first comprehensive study of H.D.'s prose, Penelope's Web is important both as a study of H.D.'s writing and as a thoughtful contribution to the remapping of modernism that critically engages poststructuralist theories of the feminine and skillfully negotiates between linguistic, materialist, and psychoanalytic interpretive strategies." American Literature

"...a high-gear example of complex literary criticism bursting-at-the-seams with insights. Unusually perceptive are her insights into H.D.'s analysis with Freud, reflecting the care and thoroughness with which Friedman has read her Freud. She is equally skilled in placing H.D.'s prose within the context of modernist prose experimentation....a staggering variety of psychological and textual issues coloring H.D.'s prose are given illumination....This strikes me as literary criticism at its most dynamically imaginative and undogmatic, a criticism worthy of a poet and fiction writer as various as H.D....here is a noble reading of a noble oeuvre of poet's prose." Norman Weinstein, American Book Review

"...Friedman's contribution to the burgeoning field of scholarship on this once-neglected author of lyric and epic poetry, historical novels, romans à clef, memoirs, and 'tributes' to Ezra Pound and Sigmund Freud is unparalleled....Friedman's Penelope's Web is an exemplary affirmative reading of H.D.'s work: a powerful new reading of her many and extremely varied prose writings; a provocative study by an American feminist who is self-consciously negotiating with post-structuralist theories of language and subjectivity while at the same time reaffirming her commitment to the idea of female-centered poetics." Ann Ardis, Novel

Book Description

Penelope's Web is the first book to examine fully the brilliantly innovative prose writing of Hilda Doolittle. H.D.'s reputation as a major modernist poet has grown dramatically; but she also deserves to be known for her innovative novels and essays.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 469 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (February 22, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521255791
• ISBN-13: 978-0521255790
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,957,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best critical book on H.D., October 15, 2003

By 

Rachel - See all my reviews

This review is from: Penelope's Web: Gender, Modernity, H. D.'s Fiction (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture) (Hardcover)

Okay, so my graduate research was on H.D. - which means I've read just about everything ever written on her and her work. Friedman is the top H.D. expert, and this is her best work so far. The book is mostly about H.D.'s fiction, but Friedman also looks at her poetry, letters and critical writing as part of an in-depth analysis. This is a critic who is so at home with her theoretical models that she can avoid getting tangled up in them. Her argument - which has to do with H.D.'s production and re-production of writing identities through her fiction - is clearly expressed and strongly supported. If you are going to study H.D., you need to read this book.