"This well could be the most important book yet published on
Eudora Welty," says noted Welty scholar Noel Polk. "It offers a
revolutionary and convincing reading of Welty's "The Golden Apples"
(1949), but its implications for the study of Welty as a writer go
far and beyond its interpretation of this single text." Until the
recent explosion of feminist critical interest in her work, Welty
criticism was dominated by the narrow and singular perspective of
her as a "white southern lady" writing first-rate "regional
fiction." Today her work is being closely re-examined for its
innovations and artistry. In this revolutionary new way of studying
Welty, Rebecca Mark and other contemporary critics have focused not
upon Welty's southern qualities but upon her total engagement with
literary modernism. Rebecca Mark's study proposes feminist
intertextuality as a reading strategy for a critical study of
Welty. Here Mark directly attacks the problem of literary influence
which for decades has intrigued critics of "The Golden Apples."
Many have focused on its mythical dimensions. Instead Mark finds
allusions that are far more pervasive. These she sees to be a
direct challenge to the dominant cultural voices of literary
tradition. She argues that Welty's text refutes the apocalypse and
despair that are hallmarks in the literary modernism formulated by
Joyce and by Faulkner. She shows indeed that Welty's text confronts
one of the mainstays of western literary tradition--the dominance
and centrality of the indomitable hero. She argues that the
expansive intertextuality in Welty reveals a communal, resonant,
metaphoric narrative that transforms such masculine elements of
rape, domination, and victimization of the feminine into narratives
of engagement, battle, confrontation, fertility, and sexual
exchange between the masculine and the feminine. Mark's reading
shows how Welty has responded not just to literary texts but also
to literary texts but also to cultural forces in creating her
memorable stories. Because Welty has given voice to a range of
silenced people--African Americans, women, old people, and
children--Mark says rightly that Welty's gift lies in the
extraordinary melding of her diverse knowledge of literature, of
history, and of immediate locale.
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