@article{1358656,
      recid = {1358656},
      author = {Buckley, Jenifer.},
      title = {Gender, pregnancy and power in eighteenth-century  literature : the maternal imagination /},
      pages = {1 online resource (VIII, 292 pages) :},
      abstract = {'In The Maternal Imagination, Buckley presents significant  original evidence of the medical, folkloric, political, and  aesthetic roots and occurrences of the trope of maternal  imagination in a diverse range of literary genres in the  eighteenth century. This comprehensive work is a valuable  contribution to the field of eighteenth-century cultural  history. -- Rebecca Davies, Associate Professor of English  Literature, Norwegian University of Science and Technology,  Norway This book reveals the cultural significance of the  pregnant woman by examining major eighteenth-century  debates concerning separate spheres, man-midwifery,  performance, marriage, the body, education, and creative  imagination. This book explores the medical, economic,  moral, and literary ramifications of the notion that a  pregnant woman could alter the development of her foetus  with the power of her thoughts and feelings.  Eighteenth-century authors sought urgently to define,  understand and control the concept of maternal imagination  as they responded to and provoked fundamental questions  about female intellect and the relationship between mind  and body. Interrogating the multiple models of maternal  imagination both separately and as a holistic set of  socio-cultural components, the author uncovers the  discourse of maternal imagination across eighteenth-century  drama, popular print, medical texts, poetry and novels.  This overdue rehabilitation of the pregnant woman in  literature is essential reading for scholars of the  eighteenth century, gender and literary history.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1358656},
}