A Feast of Words: The Triumph of Edith Wharton (Radcliffe Biography Series) by Cynthia Griffin Wolff

by Cynthia Griffin Wolff

The mystery of how a wealthy New York socialite became a major American novelist is brilliantly explored in this fascinating critical biography. To this new edition of her book, considered by many to be the most perceptive introduction to Wharton's life and work, Cynthia Griffin Wolff has added a chapter on Lily Bart and the lethal stereotypes of women in the 19th-century stage and another on the way Edith Wharton's own sensual awakening led from the frozen austerity of Ethan Frome to the lyricism and tempered happiness of Summer. No one who admires Wharton's novels or enjoys the films made from them will want to be without this superb biography.

Genres: Biography, Literary Criticism

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

Reviews

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is much more than an interesting biography. Wolff provides in depth analysis of Wharton’s
works, the Pulitzer Prize winning, “The Age of Innocence”, “The House of Mirth”, “Ethan Frome”,
and “The Custom of the Country”, among my favorites. I’m a big fan of Edith Wharton, and
I enjoyed reading about her life and the timeline as related to the publication of her novels.
And, for any who don’t already know, Edith Wharton was the first woman to win the Pulitzer.

Cynthia Griffin Wolff's studies of the major characters in Wharton’s books makes me want to go
back and re-read them so I can compare my own observations. Wolff does a particularly in depth
look at Lily Bart and her predicament in “The House of Mirth” and used lengthy passages from the
book to do so. Therefore, it’s not necessary to have recently read THOM to appreciate her insights.
Having read this book I feel like I’ve completed a full course of study on Edith Wharton. It’s not for everybody, because it goes pretty deep, but that’s what fans of Edith Wharton will appreciate.

[Michael P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wolff tells a great story intermittently, looking at both Wharton's life and her works, sometimes intermingling them and that is the problem. Right when I think the book is going great she brings in a bunch of psychoanalytical babble and mixes the life with nonsense. This was so bad at times that I thought I would give the book just two stars, one of those for the easy to digest style, but then we got to the appendix where Wolff does a wonderful job of comparing selected Wharton novels to the well made plays of the era and convincingly argues that Wharton was informed by their structures but transcended their shallower limitations. This is so good that the author earned an extra star. If only the entire book was this enlightening instead of smeared with later generation Freudian bullshit.

[Pádraig Nolan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very 1970s in some respects: some of the psychoanalysis feels quaint today, indeed so too does Griffin'-Wolff's New Criticism approach to Wharton's work. No one writes literary biographies like this anymore because it wouldn't be seen as intellectually rigorous or 'critical' enough, and it sometimes scans as appreciation rather than analysis to the eye fed on French-influenced American literary studies from the 1990s onward. Like, this isn't D.A. Miller or Eve Sedgwick, and if you're like a hardcore poststructuralist, look to more recent literature on Wharton. But the aspects that make this survey old fashioned all actually recommend A Feast of Words as a must for Wharton fans who are new to the critical bibliography. Griffin-Wolff has such control over the sweep of a whole life and an enormous literary output, and she so elegantly furnishes us with the context necessary to understand Wharton as an artist. Though such a pleasure to read - Griffin-Wolff is herself a wonderful stylist - it is occasionally repetitive. The sections dedicated to The House of Mirth and Ethan Frome were particular offenders, and could have been condensed by several pages. However, the treatment of the early work is excellent (despite the dismissal of Bunner Sisters as 'inferior'), and the analysis of The Age of Innocence remains pretty definitive.
NB: this was published before the Fullerton love letters were available, and this obviously shapes the treatment of the affair and its impact. For good discussions of the letters similar to Griffin-Wolff's, (i.e. taking broadly psychoanalytic approaches) see the books The Sexual Education of Edith Wharton and Edith Wharton's Prisoners of Shame

[Jenny · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not finish. A Feast of Words reads like the author just took a Psychology 101 class and desperately needed to prove her worth by applying everything she learned to Wharton's life. Unhelpful and definitely not worth the 20 hours it would have taken to listen to the whole thing.

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the best biographies I've ever read. Wolff's insights are deep, thoughtful and original. I'm a huge Wharton fan and I could see myself re-reading this at some point.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great as lit crit, but I thought I was going to read a bio.