Subversion

To add to Dan Green's excellent post: I became frustrated with the rhetoric of "subversion" once I realized just how broadly it was applied, usually without much reference to historical context. It's a bit like that old saw about the tree falling in the forest. If nobody noticed the subversiveness at the time, did the work actually subvert much of anything? Ovid's Ars Amatoria certainly struck the Emperor as subversive, with unfortunate repercussions for Ovid. But is Charlotte Yonge really a subversive? Or Mrs. Oliphant? Or Ouida?

Part of the problem with the rhetoric of subversion is that it tends to "fix" political or religious categories. That is, critics who use the term invent the boundaries that are supposedly being "transgressed." My far-too-old friend Emily Sarah Holt, for example, is a Calvinist and, in many respects, a real theological reactionary, especially when it comes to matters Catholic. But when we look at her attitudes to gender, she suddenly seems awfully liberal: she applauds women in the professions; staunchly defends the right of women to remain single; develops a gender-neutral theory of heroism; and even suggests that it's OK for women not to like children. (That last is a genuine shocker for this time period, I hasten to add--even the most progressive writers in the 1890s tend not to go there.) My point is that Holt saw no contradiction between her theological "conservatism" and her gender "progressivism"--and nobody else at the time seems to have seen one, either. By contrast, Eliza Lynn Linton's religious attitudes are remarkably "liberal"--she's an open agnostic, with little patience for any sort of Christianity--but one can't say the same thing for her attitudes to women. On occasion, people have tried to rescue Charlotte Yonge for a sort of feminism by pointing to her belief that women could serve God without being married--except that it was possible to articulate such attitudes without, in fact, advocating a pro-equality position. And so forth. There wasn't "a" position to be "subverted."

Comments

[Josh Lukin]

I love Ray Davis's last word on "subversion".

Have a great time down here in Philadelphia, Dr. Burstein!