Literary Significance and Criticism
- "At once courtroom drama, boarding-school gothic and adolescent confession, The Wives of Bath is a thoroughly modern tale of shifting sexualities. It is also extremely funny. Swan writes with rare verve and flair and has a good line in honesty and penis jokes- the kind that move you to tears and somehow end up making you, like her touching heroine, respect women." ~ Sunday Times
- "A human, humorous and poignant account of growing up female in a world where, as Swan puts it, 'it was just more fun to be a guy'." ~ Claire Messud, Guardian
- "A clever, chilling study of how girls can come to hate themselves and each other for not being boys." ~ Observer
Read more about this topic: The Wives Of Bath
Famous quotes containing the words literary, significance and/or criticism:
“England has the most sordid literary scene I’ve ever seen. They all meet in the same pub. This guy’s writing a foreword for this person. They all have to give radio programs, they have to do all this just in order to scrape by. They’re all scratching each other’s backs.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“For a parent, it’s hard to recognize the significance of your work when you’re immersed in the mundane details. Few of us, as we run the bath water or spread the peanut butter on the bread, proclaim proudly, “I’m making my contribution to the future of the planet.” But with the exception of global hunger, few jobs in the world of paychecks and promotions compare in significance to the job of parent.”
—Joyce Maynard (20th century)
“I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)