The Uses of Boundaries: Edith Wharton and Place
Edith Wharton’s attitude to place comes as something of a surprise. Usually presented as a cosmopolitan writer, she seems nevertheless to have recognized the usefulness of boundaries. Her characters are often mobile and when they are not, they are trapped by place. Yet homelessness came to seem to W...
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Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA)
2019-06-01
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/erea/7430 |
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| author | Virginia RICARD |
| author_facet | Virginia RICARD |
| author_sort | Virginia RICARD |
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| description | Edith Wharton’s attitude to place comes as something of a surprise. Usually presented as a cosmopolitan writer, she seems nevertheless to have recognized the usefulness of boundaries. Her characters are often mobile and when they are not, they are trapped by place. Yet homelessness came to seem to Wharton the worst of all fates. In her work, place is necessary to individual growth and fosters a tenderness for others (Lily Bart in The House of Mirth); it contains meanings incommensurate with its surface (“The Look of Paris”); attachment to place is congenial to artistic development (French Ways and Their Meanings); finally, place is never only a prison. It never merely produces what Lionel Trilling called “the morality of inertia”: even “grim” Starkfield in Ethan Frome has redeeming features. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-54593d067e014f3593fd70943e470dee |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1638-1718 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2019-06-01 |
| publisher | Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | E-REA |
| spelling | doaj-art-54593d067e014f3593fd70943e470dee2025-01-09T12:52:52ZengLaboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA)E-REA1638-17182019-06-0116210.4000/erea.7430The Uses of Boundaries: Edith Wharton and PlaceVirginia RICARDEdith Wharton’s attitude to place comes as something of a surprise. Usually presented as a cosmopolitan writer, she seems nevertheless to have recognized the usefulness of boundaries. Her characters are often mobile and when they are not, they are trapped by place. Yet homelessness came to seem to Wharton the worst of all fates. In her work, place is necessary to individual growth and fosters a tenderness for others (Lily Bart in The House of Mirth); it contains meanings incommensurate with its surface (“The Look of Paris”); attachment to place is congenial to artistic development (French Ways and Their Meanings); finally, place is never only a prison. It never merely produces what Lionel Trilling called “the morality of inertia”: even “grim” Starkfield in Ethan Frome has redeeming features.https://journals.openedition.org/erea/7430entrapmentEdith WhartoncosmopolitanismmobilityplaceLionel Trilling |
| spellingShingle | Virginia RICARD The Uses of Boundaries: Edith Wharton and Place E-REA entrapment Edith Wharton cosmopolitanism mobility place Lionel Trilling |
| title | The Uses of Boundaries: Edith Wharton and Place |
| title_full | The Uses of Boundaries: Edith Wharton and Place |
| title_fullStr | The Uses of Boundaries: Edith Wharton and Place |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Uses of Boundaries: Edith Wharton and Place |
| title_short | The Uses of Boundaries: Edith Wharton and Place |
| title_sort | uses of boundaries edith wharton and place |
| topic | entrapment Edith Wharton cosmopolitanism mobility place Lionel Trilling |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/erea/7430 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT virginiaricard theusesofboundariesedithwhartonandplace AT virginiaricard usesofboundariesedithwhartonandplace |