Archetypal Patterns in Women's Fiction

We are very fortunate indeed to have this book in print, in paperback. Sensitive and articulate, poet and Professor Annis Pratt explores the classic literary genre, the Bildungsroman, the young man's journey into the world and hence into himself, from the perspective of women characters in women's literature. In doing so, she unveils the fact that women's challenges and tasks in poetry and life are different from men's and yield different fruit, necessary fruit. Her conclusion that one contemporary endpoint for women's individuation process can entail an encounter with an inner "green-world lover," describes a hopeful and erotic alternative to a stereotypical constricted adaptation. Pratt's observation of the emergence of the "green-world lover archetype" in women's poetry goes beyond deconstructionist fantasies into the realm of finding meaning and purpose while planted right in the middle of life our lives on earth. Her observations also predict the possibility of a living reality that bridges the gap between the Knower and the Known, invites the emergence of the Self in relationship, and describes the concept of Intersubjectivity, now current in contemporary psychology.