Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-14T20:18:03.642Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Conclusion

The Ethics and Politics of Transfiguring the Commonplace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2021

Juliet Shields
Affiliation:
University of Washington
Get access

Summary

Conclusion: Awareness of the romance of everyday life did not disappear from Scottish women’s writing with the advent of the First World War. A concern with magnificence of the mundane continues to illuminate a range of mid-century fiction, from D. E. Stevenson’s popular romances to Muriel Spark’s postmodern novels. The persistence of Scottish women writers’ interest in the romance of everyday life has been met with a similarly persistent devaluation of their work on the grounds of its supposed triviality. In the place of depth, originality, and complexity, Scottish women writers offer comfort, fortification, and pleasure – affective qualities that scholars and critics have largely forgotten about. They suggest that awareness of the beauty and wonder of everyday life is an important skill to cultivate because it is not an instrumental or goal-oriented practice: the experience is its own end.

Type
Chapter
Information
Scottish Women's Writing in the Long Nineteenth Century
The Romance of Everyday Life
, pp. 180 - 186
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Conclusion
  • Juliet Shields, University of Washington
  • Book: Scottish Women's Writing in the Long Nineteenth Century
  • Online publication: 27 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009000048.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Conclusion
  • Juliet Shields, University of Washington
  • Book: Scottish Women's Writing in the Long Nineteenth Century
  • Online publication: 27 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009000048.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Conclusion
  • Juliet Shields, University of Washington
  • Book: Scottish Women's Writing in the Long Nineteenth Century
  • Online publication: 27 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009000048.007
Available formats
×