Masterplots II Women's Literature Series - 9780893568986

Masterplots II, Women's Literature Series offers 536 essays that examine the rich tradition of fiction and nonfiction literature by women from ancient Greece to the late twentieth century. Classic feminist tracts from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), by Mary Wollstonecraft, to The Feminine Mystique (1963), by Betty Friedan, stand alongside the poetry of Sappho, the plays of Lillian Hellman, the novels of Jane Austen, and the historical texts of Barbara Tuchman. Female characters in plays, stories, and novels experience lives of silence and oppression, while real women tell their own, similar tales in letters, diaries, and autobiographies. Works by women writers from Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas are covered; twenty-six countries are represented. The articles in Masterplots II: Women's Literature Series offer information about the works included in an easy-access format with helpful ready-reference features. Each article gives the author's name and vital dates, the type of work and the original publication date, including the foreign-language title and publication date where applicable. Essays that examine novels and plays also provide a genre category; identify the time period and setting of the plot, and present a list of the work's principal characters with brief descriptions. In addition, the articles on plays provide the year and location of the first production. The essays analyzing history texts, letters, memoirs, diaries and autobiographies offer information concerning time and location as well.