Conclusion: Drawing a New Map of Love

Abstract

In the conclusion, Renk argues that Neo-Victorian women writers draw a new “map of love,” as they often forge a link between sexual and creative eros. Overall, these writers underscore creative eros or the unfolding of creative gifts in their female characters who are women artists, writers, rogues, gender outlaws, spiritualist leaders, and travelers. They show us women developing an artistic gaze, women writers overcoming the obstacles of motherhood, male influence, and the perception that women writers are unfeminine monsters; they show us women experiencing philia via the lesbian continuum, women adopting spiritual roles, women discovering new identities as they travel to new worlds, and women building new worlds of female habitation and attempting to envision gender fluidity and a utopian, genderless society.