Edith Wharton's Dialogue With Realism and

Arguing against the prevailing view of Edith Wharton as a realist writer, Hildegard Hoeller opens up the Wharton canon by finding the "real" Wharton in the writer's sentimental voice and in her critique of realism. With this focus on a blind spot in Wharton criticism, Hoeller demonstrates that the celebrated American writer created a dialogue between the two literary traditions.

Most analyses of Wharton's work describe her early triumph as a realist and then her decline in the 1920s into sentimental fiction. Instead, Hoeller examines important sentimental moments in Wharton's "realist" masterpieces and finds realism in the sentimental "minor" work (including the undervalued 1925 novel, The Mother's Recompense). Hoeller shows that Wharton used the sentimental voice both to express the truth of female desire and to express her critique of male realism. In this, Wharton is shown to be fully in control of her art from the beginning to the end of her career.

Using Wharton as a case study, Hoeller maintains that the ongoing argument about the value of American se

Hildegard Hoeller is an assistant professor of English at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Preface

ix

Economy and Excess: An Introduction

1

(37)

``I Did Love Him, I Did Care'': Sentimental and Ironic Voices in Fast and Loose

38

(15)

Life and Fiction: The Dangers of Literary Taste

53

(28)

Realist or Sentimental Writer? Fast and Loose Remembered and Edith Wharton's Rite of Passage

81

(15)

The Triumphant Plasticity of The House of Mirth

96

(30)

The Glimpses of the Moon: The Novel The House of Mirth Is Not

126

(14)

The Illegitimate Excess of Motherhood in ``The Old Maid,'' ``Her Son,'' and ``Roman Fever''

140

(33)

Defying Economies: Sentimental Fiction Revisited in The Mother's Recompense

173

(24)

Conclusion, or a Happy Union?

197

(8)

Notes

205

(7)

Works Cited

212

(9)

Index

221

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Edith Wharton's Dialogue With Realism and Sentimental Fiction

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials