This book explores the Catholic aesthetic and mystical dimensions in Kate Chopin’s fiction within the context of an evolving American Catholicism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through a close reading of her novels and numerous short stories, Kate Chopin and Catholicism looks at the ways Chopin represented Catholicism in her work as a literary device that served on multiple levels: as an aesthetic within local color depictions of Louisiana, as a trope for illuminating the tensions surrounding nineteenth-century women’s struggles for autonomy, as a critique of the Catholic dogma that subordinated authenticity and physical and emotional pleasure, and as it pointed to the distinction between religious doctrine and mystical experience, and enabled the articulation of spirituality beyond the context of the Church. This book reveals Chopin to be not only a literary visionary but a writer who saw divinity in the natural world.
| ISBN: | 9783030440244 |
| Publication date: | 14th May 2021 |
| Author: | Heather Ostman |
| Publisher: | Springer Nature Switzerland AG |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 229 pages |
| Genres: |
Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000 Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church |
This book explores the Catholic aesthetic and mystical dimensions in Kate Chopin’s fiction within the context of an evolving American Catholicism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through a close reading of her novels and numerous short stories, Kate Chopin and Catholicism looks at the ways Chopin represented Catholicism in her work as a literary device that served on multiple levels: as an aesthetic within local color depictions of Louisiana, as a trope for illuminating the tensions surrounding nineteenth-century women’s struggles for autonomy, as a critique of the Catholic dogma that subordinated authenticity and physical and emotional pleasure, and as it pointed to the distinction between religious doctrine and mystical experience, and enabled the articulation of spirituality beyond the context of the Church. This book reveals Chopin to be not only a literary visionary but a writer who saw divinity in the natural world.
Kate Chopin and Catholicism features in the following genres: Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church
Kate Chopin and Catholicism is available in Paperback
Kate Chopin and Catholicism was written by Heather Ostman and published by Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Kate Chopin and Catholicism has 229 pages
£67.49