Gossip

by Patricia Meyer Spacks

Explores the nature, morality, and aesthetics of gossip, examines gossip in history and the psychology of gossip, and analyzes gossip--as subject and literary technique--in plays, letters, biographies, and novels

Genres: Nonfiction

308 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Paula]

read for my dissertation

[Madelyn]

Read four chapters of the book and the conclusion.

"Gossip gives voices to the dominated as well as the dominant; literature lets these voices be heard."

[kaitlyn]

read the first chapter at the pvd athenaeum. interesting! discusses Heidegger and Kierkegaard takes on gossip or “idle talk” and shortcomings in those thoughts due to time. particularly interested in the context about the advent of the novel as a literature format and how that made lots of both celebration and fear of “idle talk”

[Leslie]

A smart and interesting examination of the intersection between gossip--conversation about people and their doings, speculation about private lives and motives--and texts, including biography and autobiography, the publishing and reading of private letters and journals, drama, and fiction. Spacks examones both gossip as subject matter (characters who engage in gossip, who fear gossip, whose lives are affected by gossip) and gossip as analogue for our relationship to stories and our activities as readers. Close readings of lots of texts from this standpoint, including Mary Wortley Montague, Austen, Samuel Johnson, Boswell, Thackeray, Sheridan, George Eliot, Wharton, Henry James, Anthony Trollope, Frances Burney, Emily Bronte.