Seeing Together: Friendship Between the Sexes in English Writing from Mill to Woolf - Tapa dura

"Excellent. . . . Looking closely at the 'idioms' associated with friendship between the sexes, Luftig examines literary representations of relations between men and women that are not figured as either sexual or familial. . . . Strongly grounded in narrative theory, engagingly written, and carefully researched, Luftig's book is a useful contribution to Victorian studies, gender studies, and the history of the novel." -- Choice "This consistently intelligent study of friendship in late Victorian and early modernist literature puts long overdue pressure on feminism and gay studies to rethink the dominant sexuality in terms of the other heterosexualities it displaces. Luftig puts forth a compelling argument that certain instances of men and women 'seeing together' represent an entirely different kind of pleasure and power which challenges the separation of gendered spheres. He also contends that, for lack of conventions to organize them into this other kind of thing, signs of such friendship inevitably slide back into Victorian heterosexism, where they either indicate denial or elicit gratification." -- Nancy Armstrong * Brown University *

Following the vicissitudes of friendship between the sexes in some of England's key writers, the author traces a history of idioms for today's friendships-their vulnerability, limits, and potential for change.