LITR 4232: American Renaissance

UHCL, spring 2002

Student Research Proposal

Kate Payne

I am planning a journal about the rise in popularity and number of women authors in the American Renaissance. I want to focus on women authors because they are in a unique position of representing authors that fall into classic, representative and popular literature of the time. I am planning to do biographies on both Sarah Margaret Fuller and Emily Dickinson.

What I want to accomplish with this journal is a detailed overview of the changing world of women's literature in this time period. I want to show chronologically where these women were and how they affected the American Renaissance movement.

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Dear Kate,

I think our library has a copy of Nina Baym's _Women's Fiction_, which is mostly about the generation of women novelists who rose during the American Renaissance. You might also check the information in our anthology about Fanny Fern and Stowe.

Related issues may include women's education--not only were more women writing, but more were reading. The growth of this audience stimulated the demand for women writers. A somewhat negative take on this change (it's still interesting and a good historical survey) is a book called _The Feminization of American Culture_, also in our library.