An Analysis of Women's Strategic Discourses in the American Renaissance

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K00385
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 02030:English literature and literature in the English language-related
• Research Institution: Taisho University
• Principal Investigator: Ito Yoshiko 大正大学, 文学部, 教授 (50223201)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 女性の言説 / 言説的戦略 / アメリカン・ルネサンス

Outline of Final Research Achievements

During the American Renaissance in the mid-19th century, when American literature established its ground as a national literary genre, women struggled to find their own discourses. The purpose of this research project is to explore how the discourses of women's literary self-representation were formed in this period. The discourses of women involved in transcendentalism, the movement to abolish black slavery, and the women's suffrage movement tell another history of the period of the American Renaissance. Both literary works by women writers and images of women portrayed by male mainstream writers provide clues to understanding women's difficulties in establishing their independence. Examining how women, whose rights were restricted and bound by normative gender roles, attempted to become "subjects" of speech and proclaim freedom gives some suggestions to understand the liberation of the human spirit.

Free Research Field

アメリカ文学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

周縁に置かれた者の主体性確立の言説的な戦略を探ることによって、主流文化からの疎外と規範の呪縛を超越する新たなアイデンティティがどのように模索されたのかを明らかにする試みは、性差別にとどまらず、現在もなお残る偏見や差別を乗りこえて主体性の尊厳を獲得するための示唆となろう。現代に立脚し、19世紀の状況を踏まえつつ、20世紀以降の批評理論を用いて、共時的かつ通時的に考察することは、19世紀の限界を現代から批評することが目的ではなく、むしろ現代的視点によってこそ、19世紀の女性たちの言論による挑戦の意義が明らかになると考えるからである。不利を逆転させる言説的戦略は時代を超える普遍性を有すると考える。