Introduction

This special issue on ageing and literature contributes to an expanding field at the intersection of literary studies and age studies. Building on foundational work of the last decades of the twentieth century (Gullette a, b; Wyatt-Brown; Woodward), scholarship that brings together these fields is underpinned by a political commitment to challenging ageism. Recent collections of work in this area (Lipscomb and Swinnen; Falcus et al.; Barry and Skagen) showcase the wealth of interdisciplinary, ethically driven work that makes the case for the importance of literary narratives in both reflecting and shaping our understanding and experience of ageing across the lifecourse. This scholarship is methodologically diverse, addresses a wide range of genres and forms, and is informed by an intersectional approach. Despite this growth in the field, the importance of the humanities and of literary studies to gerontological knowledge and our understanding of ageing cannot be assumed. As Shirley Jordan makes clear in her introduction to the recent volume Women’s Narratives of Ageing and Care, assertions of the value of the humanities, and of literature in particular, to gerontological study are made frequently and yet still need to be made (Jeremiah and Jordan). We concur with Jordan’s view that “writing [is] fundamentally creative and constitutive of how we see and experience the world” and that it offers us insights into the experience of ageing that are otherwise unavailable (3). And we see this volume as a contribution to that assertion of the value of literary age studies.

Introduction to Within and Without: Essays in Representations of Ageing (special issue).