Scenes of Reading

The Author: Nancy Cervetti has a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in nineteenth-century British literature and feminist theory. She has published widely in journals including Women's Studies and the Journal of Modern Literature, and she is Director of Women's Studies at Avila College in Kansas City, Missouri.

«This complex and well-written study utilizes contemporary feminist critical theories to explore works by George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, and Virginia Woolf. Utilizing material as diverse as the history of witchcraft and physiology, Dr. Cervetti analyses the reading experiences of her chosen authors to show the ways they were able to challenge and transform reductive views of women. Drawing upon George Eliot's early reading and particularly Eliot's use of DeFoe's 'The History of the Devil' and Thomas à Kempis' 'The Imitation of Christ', Cervetti illuminates 'The Mill on the Floss', and specifically the role of Maggie Tulliver in the novel. In the final chapters, Cervetti draws upon diverse discourses such as those of S. Weir Mitchell and 'The British Medical Journal' and the eugenics theories of Dr. T.B. Hyslop in order to illuminate Virginia Woolf and her writing. Cervetti brings Woolf's prolific reading effectively to bear upon 'Orlando', and in so doing adds substantially to our understanding of the work. In short, Cervetti's is an illuminating work, not least because of the eclectic nature of the material she brings to bear upon the three authors and their novels.» (William Baker, Department of English, Northern Illinois University)