Mimesis, metaphor and representation: Holding out an Olive branch to the emergent Schreiner canon

Authors
Citation
L. Stanley, Mimesis, metaphor and representation: Holding out an Olive branch to the emergent Schreiner canon, WOM HIST R, 10(1), 2001, pp. 27-50
Citations number
58
Language
INGLESE
art.tipo
Article
Categorie Soggetti
History
Journal title
WOMENS HISTORY REVIEW
ISSN journal
0961-2025 → ACNP
Volume
10
Issue
1
Year of publication
2001
Pages
27 - 50
Database
ISI
SICI code
0961-2025(2001)10:1<27:MMARHO>2.0.ZU;2-K
Abstract
There are complex and interesting representational issues and interpretatio nal practices involved in claiming to 'know past lives' and these have part icular resonance in feminist terms. These ideas are examined in relation to a particular case study, of the feminist writer and theorist Olive Schrein er (1855-1920), although the discussion contributes to the 'women's history and post-structuralism' debate by eschewing taking up an abstract 'positio n' in favour of examining these ideas through a grounded historical example . A range of representations of Schreiner is discussed, including a photogr aph which her estranged husband contemporaneously had 'touched up' before s ending it to some of her friends just after her death, and present-day repr esentations of Schreiner in the emergent feminist canon of claimed knowledg e about her. The ideas of mimesis and alterity are used both in relation to photographic representation and also in relation to the use of metaphor to stand for perceived facets of Schreiner's character. Representational issu es are fundamental and ought not to be excised from feminist discussion; at the same time, the past and its 'irreducible things that happened' must al so be taken seriously.