Frith, Gill (1988) The intimacy which is knowledge : female friendship in the novels of women writers. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

The thesis offers a historical account of the
representation of friendship in the novels of English
women writers from the nineteenth century to the
present. Questioning the prevalent understanding of the
history of women's friendship in terms of a single major
rupture, from nineteenth-century 'innocence' to
twentieth-century 'guilt', the thesis identifies
narrative configurations which recur throughout this,
period, and which define friendship as a formative
learning experience integrally related to the
acquisition of gendered identity. It concludes that
there can be no final and 'perfect' representation of
friendship, since the nature of the "knowledge' shared
has continually shifted in relation to changing
understandings of femininity.
Chapter 1 identifies the origins and nature of the
Victorian concept of the "second self", in which the
friend acts as the mirror of, and means of access to, an
idealised female subjectivity. Chapter 2 analyses the
ways in which this concept informs the narrative
patterns and rituals in Victorian fictions of
friendship. Chapter 3 offers a new reading of novels by
Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot and Charlotte Bronte, in
which the conventions identified in Chapter 2 are
adapted to question the existing boundaries of feminine
identity. Chapter 4 examines the impact of changes in
women's education upon the representation of friendship
in turn-of-the-century feminist and anti-feminist
novels, and in a new genre, the school story for girls.
Chapter 5 shows that the scientific construct of
lesbianism produced a new distinction between the
'healthy' and the 'unhealthy' relationship, but that the
terms of this distinction were contested; in
twentieth-century novels of the 'gyriaeceum', the
tradition continues, but is newly eroticised. Chapter 6
looks at friendship as 'revision' in recent English and
American novels, in which earlier configurations are
redeployed in the light of contemporary feminist concern
to recuperate and re-imagine the past.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	English literature -- 19th century -- Women authors, English literature -- 20th century -- Women authors, Female friendship in literature
Official Date:	December 1988
Dates:	Date Event December 1988 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Goode, John, 1939-
Extent:	iv, 423 p.
Language:	eng

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