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Through the focusing lens of Anna de Noailles, Persephone Unbound revives multiple facets of the culture in which she wrote. More crucially still, it reevaluates a writer whose historical stature and whose incorporation by the French establishment as a representative of "feminine" poetry have tended to overshadow her literary merits. With respect to her poetry in particular, critics have often failed to recognize the modernity of its lyric voice on account of its traditional verse patterns. Reflecting a dual attitude of competition and cooperation with her cultural world, Noailles held a similarly doublevoiced discourse toward conventional interpretations of woman. Her classification in literary history as a belated French Romantic further obfuscates the significance of her work While recognizing her predecessors, Noailles was frequently unable to find adequate models in their works for a distinct poetic identity. In seeking new versions of the feminine self she acknowledged women who were unable to write and, more broadly, she attempted to provide a formerly silent Muse with voice and presence. Noailles' Greek inheritance also enabled her to reclaim mythical figures such as those of Persephone and Antigone, and thus to invigorate the link that French poetry had established with antiquity. The book finther evaluates Noailles' unique positions on social-sexual politics as they find expression in her little-known relationship with the nationalist writer Maurice Barres. First made available to readers in 1991, their correspondence discloses how Barres found in Noailles a long-sought muse even while he rejected her progressive politics. The author analyzes both Noailles' renditions of this relationship and the oscillation in Barrbs's works between the symbolic significance he attached to Noailles as a quasi-miraculous incarnation of his fascination with Dionysian values and his equally forceful denial of a poet whose inspiration clashed with his philosophy of nationalist action.
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I gather from the introduction to this book that the diaries had been edited for publication as a continuous narrative--minus the more embarrassing self-revelations--entitled by a hand other than the lady's a "Diary from Dixie." The author herself had died long before the book was ever printed, leaving the details of publication to a relative. The editors of the current text despair the latter work as "heavily cut and carelessly edited (p. ix)," because it prevents the reader from knowing well the lady as a character herself.
The Private Mary Chesnut is just what the Diary from Dixie is not, a real diary. As such, it contains entries that are for the most part endless mentions of people with whom the reader probably will not be knowledgeable unless he or she is very "into" the South and Civil War history. One is frequently reduced to checking the footnotes for information on the individuals named. Unfortunately the editors of the diary give only the barest of facts about them, usually social or military rank or relationship to Mrs. Chesnut or another individual mentioned in the diary. The writer's comments often leave one trying to read between her lines for some inkling of "what's really going on!" because there is the merest glimpse of some probably very interesting underlying story. The editors of the text, however, either will not or cannot give these details. Because of this dearth of underlying social information, the book comes across as either confusing or a little boring, a simple catalogue of parties and people met at parties, of polite social visits paid back and forth. This is definitely not an Edith Warton!
Spaced throughout the document are nuggets of truly golden information about the Civil War and antebellum period. [THOSE WRITING PAPERS IN AMERICAN LITERATURE OR HISTORY TAKE NOTE] Because the lady was well connected by virtue of her own social status and oft sought company, she is privileged to the opinions of and gossip about significant individuals. She knew people who had met or knew the Lincoln family and was herself intimately acquainted with the Jefferson Davis family. One of the more interesting quotes was gossip associated with Mary Todd Lincoln's notorious household economy in the White House (pp. 30 and 31-32). This gives a much truer picture of what the social elite thought of the Lincolns, particularly in the South, and makes clear, that Washington D. C. was--and probably still is--more part of the southern social milieu than that of northern or national.
Certainly the lady herself comes across quite real in these diaries. In short she is often vain, opinionated, over-indulged, and wasteful by modern standards--at least by middle class standards--but she is also a well educated, astute and outspoken judge of political events and of the social ills of the institution of slavery. [THOSE WRITING PAPERS IN AMERICAN LITERATURE OR HISTORY TAKE NOTE] Her discourse on its ills, particularly of misogynation, are eminently quotabl--and often are. My favorite is that beginning with "I wonder if it be a sin to think slavery a curse on any land (p. 42-43)," etc.
While the book is difficult to get through, for those with a desire to know more than just the bare facts about the Civil War period and its society, this book is probably a good source for that information. [THOSE WRITING PAPERS IN AMERICAN LITERATURE OR HISTORY TAKE NOTE] This would definitely be considered a primary rather than a secondary source for the topic.
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A wise and witty woman, Mary Chesnut spent most of the war years close to ground zero in Richmond, VA. She knew Jefferson and Varina Davis intimately. She rubbed elbows with congressmen and cabinet members. Mrs. Chesnut was a sharp tongued woman who pulled no punches and she tells us much that, but for her, would remain unknown about the leaders of the "Lost Cause".
Anyone who enjoyed the Woodward/Muhlenfeld editon of Mary Chesnut's memoirs can't afford to miss this publication of the materials from which she created her masterpiece.
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Keep up the good work Marshall. I can't wait for the Pete Maravich book!
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A really great resource for the individual that wants to learn Spanish.
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Take, for example, the pattern and redrawing of the fitted 14th century dress. The pattern given in MOL:T&C is from one the Greenland tunics. In fact, according to Robin Netherton, it's a redrawing of tunic that the is attributed as a man's tunic that isn't particularly fitted. There just isn't enough evidence to say that a tunic from Greenland is a good indication of fashion in mainland Europe.
That said, this is a fantastic resource. It should be in every recreationists library. But reader beware not everything in it is exactly 100% accurate.
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