Background
Shideler, Ross Patrick was born on April 12, 1936 in Denver, Colorado, United States.
( Building on the intellectual and historical context of ...)
Building on the intellectual and historical context of Darwin’s theory of evolution and its concomitant questioning of a divine father, this book analyzes dramatic and narrative representations of crises in the nineteenth-century patriarchal family and the gradual rise of the independent or New Woman in works by Zola, Ibsen, Strindberg, and Hardy. The introduction establishes the book’s critical foundation, which is based on the thought of Darwinian scholars, family and psychoanalytic theorists, and a variety of feminist critics. This is followed by a brief overview of Darwin’s challenge to Creationist beliefs, suggesting how evolutionary theory served as a focal point for European literary depictions of patriarchal families in turmoil. The author then discusses works by Auguste Comte, Hippolyte Taine, and Emile Zola, whose Thérèse Raquin features a strong and sexual woman paired with a weak man. The book’s middle chapters focus on the changing world of men and women in Scandinavia, with emphasis on the writings of Georg Brandes and J. P. Jacobsen, precursors of Ibsen and Strindberg. Analysis of four Ibsen playsPillars of Society, A Doll House, Ghosts, and Hedda Gablerreveals a Darwinian universe in which women struggle to break free of patriarchal restrictions, typified by Nora’s forgery of her father’s name in A Doll House. A subsequent discussion highlights Strindberg’s prose and dramafrom Son of a Servant to The Fathers, Creditors, The Dance of Death, and The Pelicanwhich reflect the nineteenth-century bourgeois male’s resistance to the loss of the privileged role of the father and the weakening of the nuclear family. The final chapter demonstrates how Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure lay bare the destructive heritage of the father’s name and the fatal effects of patriarchal traditions; the author shows how Hardy builds his narratives on the inevitably conflictual relationships between men and women restricted by outdated gender roles defined by social and religious institutions.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804735603/?tag=2022091-20
( Ross Shideler offers an in-depth introduction to the wo...)
Ross Shideler offers an in-depth introduction to the works of Per Olov Enquist and discusses the writer's central themes and the imagery and motifs he uses to develop them. This in-depth study begins with a brief introduction to the social and literary backgrounds that are the foundations for Enquist's writing. His work is presented in chronological fashion beginning with his early psychological novels written in the tradition of the French nouveau roman and proceeding to his highly regarded documentary novels and popular plays. Shideler traces Enquist's fascination with modern man's isolation and his attempt to find connections in history to explain the dilemma. Other psychological, social, and political themes are examined and analyzed in this first critical study concentrating entirely on Enquist's work.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0313242364/?tag=2022091-20
literature educator translator author poet
Shideler, Ross Patrick was born on April 12, 1936 in Denver, Colorado, United States.
Bachelor of Arts, San Francisco State University, 1958; Master of Arts, University Stockholm, 1963; Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley, 1968.
Instructor in comparative literature, University of California, Berkeley, 1967-1968; assistant Professor of English, Hunter College, New York City, 1968-1969; assistant professor Scandinavian language and comparative literature, University of California at Los Angeles, 1969-1973; associate professor, University of California at Los Angeles, 1973-1979; professor, University of California at Los Angeles, since 1979; chairman program in comparative literature, 1979-1986, 92-96.
( Building on the intellectual and historical context of ...)
( Ross Shideler offers an in-depth introduction to the wo...)
Member Modern Language Association (Executive Committee division Scandinavian Langs. and Lits. 1993-1997), Society Advancement Scandinavian Studies (executive county 1985-1989, vice president 1997-1999, president since 1999), American Comparative Literature Association, Association Depts. and Programs Comparative Literature (Executive Committee 1993-1994, 94-).
