Chick Lit or the damned mob of scribbling women

The book Chick Lit: Popularizing Fiction for Women is coming out on December 7 and, as usual, by commenting on something apparently totally unrelated to the Brontës we are staying very much on topic.

'Chick Lit: the New Women's Fiction offers a timely analysis of a new genre. With its scholarly approach and accessible style, it offers rich possibilities as a classroom text. Teachers of contemporary literature will value its discussions of generic traits and of relationships to canonized women writers including Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, and the Brontes. For cultural studies classrooms, it offers intriguing - and multicultural -meditations on commodity culture, body image, and postfeminism.' - Carol M. Dole, Professor of English, Ursinus College

If that's not enough information on the book, Tahree Lane from the Toledo Blade has written a comprehensive article on it:

Books for women, by women, have been discredited as far back as the 18th and 19th centuries, said Mallory Young, coauthor of Chick Lit. Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Jane Austen, and lesser-known female writers were frequently castigated by male reviewers, said Young. Even Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, decried the proliferation of female writers as "that damn mob of scribbling women," said Young, an English professor at Tarleton State University in Texas.

Would you seriously consider the Brontës 19th century chicklit?

Categories: Books, Charlotte_Brontë, Emily_Brontë