THE POLITICS OF PLACE: URBAN FEMINISM IN THE LATE WORKS OF AMY LEVY HONORS THESIS Presented to the Honors College of Texas State University-San Marcos in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation in the Honors College by Elissa Erin Myers San Marcos, Texas May 2013 THE POLITICS OF PLACE: URBAN FEMINISM IN THE LATE WORKS OF AMY LEVY Thesis Supervisor: ________________________________ Kathryn Ledbetter, Ph.D. Department of English Second Reader: _________________________________ Margaret Menninger, Ph.D. Department of History Approved: _______________________________________ Heather C. Galloway, Ph.D. Dean, Honors College COPYRIGHT By Elissa Erin Myers 2013 FAIR USE AND AUTHOR PERMISSION STATEMENT Fair Use This work is protected by the Copryright Laws of the United States (Public Law 94-553, section 107). Consistent with fair use as defined in the Copyright Laws, brief quotations from this material are allowed with proper acknowledgment. Use of this material for financial gain without the author’s express written permission is not allowed. Duplication Permission As the copyright holder of this work, I, Elissa Myers, authorize duplication of this work, in whole or in part, for education or scholarly purposes only. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am lucky to have many people to thank for helping me with this thesis. I would like to thank firstly, Dr. Kathryn Ledbetter and Dr. Margaret Menninger, my supervisor and second reader. Both of them have had far more faith in my work than I ever did. That faith has been the most valuable resource I possibly could have had. In particular, I would like to thank Dr. Ledbetter for letting me use her facsimile of the Woman’s World, and for her advice on travel and graduate school. I would like to thank Dr. Menninger for teaching the class that inspired my interest in the fin-de-siècle in the first place. The rigor of that class gave me knowledge I never would have had otherwise. I would also like to thank the faculty and the staff of the Honors College, Dr. Heather Galloway, Diann McCabe, Melanie Liddle, and John Hood. The money from the Student Undergraduate Research Fund award made possible my trip to London a few weeks ago, which cemented my desire to continue studying British literature, and gave me the knowledge and contacts to continue studying it. I am immensely grateful for that opportunity. I would also like to thank them for letting me work with them for the last three years. I am so lucky to have a job that is as fulfilling as this one at the age of twenty-two. Their willingness to listen to and to value my job-related and academic ideas has made my experience at Texas State incredibly valuable. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends. I would like to thank my parents for their unfailing love and support, and for pushing me to go to Texas State in the first place. I would also like to thank Alix Scarborough, my roommate and best friend, v who has inspired me so much just by being her beautiful self. Finally, I would like to thank my boyfriend Matthew Parrott. Nothing neutralizes paralyzing self-doubt like a strong cup of coffee and a big hug, both of which he dispatched generously. With all of these people, I would like to share a quote from Amy Levy, written to her friend, Vernon Lee: “What a difference it has made to me to have known you.” v  i TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................................. v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS..............................................................................................viii ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................... ix I. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................ 1 II. MRS. JELLYBY OR THE “TRIM YOUNG PERSON IN THE PINCE-NEZ”?: AMY LEVY’S REDEFINITION OF WOMEN’S USE OF PUBLIC SPACE........................... 10 III. “HEAVEN HELP” THE LADIES: LEVY’S MIDDLE-CLASS FEMINISM.......... 32 IV. TO “BEAT THEMSELVES AGAINST THE ANCIENT FORTIFICATIONS” OR TO “SCALE THE WALLS AND DEPART?”: THE PLACE OF WOMEN IN REUBEN SACHS................................................................................................................................41 V. CONCLUSION - FROM “FROM PALLID LITTLE AMY LEVY” TO “A GIRL OF GENIUS”: THE LEGACIES OF AMY LEVY................................................................. 65 VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………67 vi  i LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Figure 1 - “Readers at the British Museum.” Atalanta: Every Girl’s Magazine 7 (1 Apr. 1889): 448-453. Print......................................................................................................... 20 Figure 2 - “Readers at the British Museum.” Atalanta: Every Girl’s Magazine 7 (1 Apr. 1889): 448-453. Print......................................................................................................... 21 Figure 3 - “Women and Club Life.” Woman’s World 1 (1888): 364-367. Print............... 28 vi  ii ABSTRACT THE POLITICS OF PLACE: URBAN FEMINISM IN THE LATE WORKS OF AMY LEVY By Elissa Erin Myers Texas State University-San Marcos May 2013   Amy Levy can be seen as a poet of modernity, of the time of dramatic change that made itself felt particularly in Western European cities in the 1880s and 90s. Much of Levy’s work takes the city of London not only as its setting, but as its focus. In her works, she explores many issues that were beginning to affect the everyday lives and the ideas of people living in London at this time, including the place of women and Jewish people in society, and the place of people in this rapidly changing city. Though Levy’s status as a feminist and as an urban poet have been established, my thesis furthers this work by arguing that there is a connection between these two vectors of her identity. Levy’s politicization of female experiences and her discussion of urban modernity are inextricably linked. Levy politicizes the city of London by showing how it was or was not accessible to women. She explores how increased mobility could confer on women increased intellectual and emotional freedom. While Levy affirms that the urban environment was ix increasingly becoming a more liberating place for women, freeing them from the confining mores of the past, she also affirms that certain women are still confined within narrow spaces and mores even within the city. She identifies Jewish women, middle class women, and women who are both Jewish and middle class as particularly vulnerable to this kind of confinement. x