Invariably, much more is left out than included, and what is included can receive hasty mention at best. Supplementary historical and sociological data is occasionally provided. As the author writes in her preface, "I venture to guess that had the romantic friends of other eras lived today, many of them would have been lesbian-feminists, and had the lesbian-feminists of our day lived in other eras, most of them would have been romantic friends." The author's method calls for large generalizations supported by textual evidence drawn from a wide range of sources, including literary works, diaries, letters, biographies. Faderman sees three historical stages of such friendships: a long era in which they were socially condoned and predominantly asexual although deeply emotional a transition stage in the early twentieth century when female emancipation and the new "sciences" of sexology and psychology led to the discrediting of such friendships as deviant and diseased and a contemporary stage when these friendships, now sexual in nature, have become the occasion for feminist activism. It studies the occurrence of romantic friendship between women in letters and in life from the Renaissance to the present it surveys the canon of lesbian literature written by both men and women and it advances a theory of the genesis and transformation of female romantic friendship over historical time. Surpassing the Love of Men is an ambitious undertaking. Surpassing the Love of Men: Female Romantic Friendship from the Renaissance to the Present. Thus despite its technical competency, orderliness, and clarity, the book seems to often to repeat mere commonplaces of literary history and criticism.
In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ģ78Reviews plan forces the discussion over well-worn ways, obliges the author to go over well-known plots, situations, actions, and characterizations, all to the critical purpose of measuring the degrees of their commitment to libertarian or deterministic principles.
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