Heroines: Their Development in European Narratives

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Gerhart Hoffmeister (University of California, Santa Barbara)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.1: Greek Writing and Culture: Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and Imperial, -800--100.
Vol. editors: Jonathan Burgess (University of Toronto), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Vaios Liapis (Open University of Cyprus), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Mali Skotheim (Ashoka University), Laura Swift (The Open University)

Domains

Literature Topic

Dates

Date of occurrence c.-431- c.1830

Places

Ancient Greece (Involved)
England (Involved)
France (Involved)
Germany (Involved)
Russia (Involved)
Spain (Involved)

Resources

Recommended Reading

Since Madame de Staël (De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les institutions socials [About Literature in Connection with Social Institutions, 1800]) the national character of a people has been viewed as a co-determining factor in the creation of literary works along with the historical background, the author’s life experiences and even the overall climate. The test point by which the state of civilization of a country or age may be judged has been called the position of women in society (Eileen Power, The Legacy of the Middle Ages, 1926). Accordingly, female protagonists frequently serve as mirrors of societal backwardness or of advances toward more equality among the genders. Whether all of …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2446 words

Citation: Hoffmeister, Gerhart. "Heroines: Their Development in European Narratives". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 January 2012 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=17672, accessed 19 April 2024.]

View recommended reading for this article

Save this article