"The Dark Women of Poe and Hawthorne"

Women’s Heritage Presentation by Margaret Sherve
March 10-Monday-9:00 a.m.-Gordon B. Olson Library, Lower Level

Many know Edgar Allen Poe’s poem "Annabel Lee" and his short story "Ligeia," and have read about Hester Prynne in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. This lecture will explore correlations between the dark women depicted by Poe and Hawthorne (including "Rappaccini’s Daughter," Beatrice), and other early nineteenth-century writers such as Caroline Kirkland, Rebecca Harding Davis, and those Sentimental Writers whom Hawthorne later described as a "damned mob of scribbling women."

Margaret Sherve
Margaret Sherve, PhD, is Assistant Professor of English at Minot State University in Minot, North Dakota. She holds degrees from Luther College in Decorah, IA (Sociology), Iowa State University in Ames, IA, (Literature), and Washington State University in Pullman, WA, (American Studies). Her scholarship focuses on women and literature in nineteenth-century America.