Improvement and Politeness in the Female Spectator

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Improvement and Politeness in the Female Spectator ABSTRACT REFORM THE MORALS AND IMPROVE THE MANNERS: IMPROVEMENT AND POLITENESS IN THE FEMALE SPECTATOR Eliza Haywood’s The Female Spectator, a 1740s periodical, was dedicated to the pursuit of personal improvement, with the ultimate goal of educating readers in how to achieve politeness. It did so through letters, anecdotes, and essays that detailed appropriate behavior for its readers. The popularity of The Female Spectator suggests that it may have influenced readers to follow its suggestions: in this case, by encouraging women to venture into county gardens to study natural philosophy and to moderate their attendance of public events. In recent years, scholars have explored the significance of The Female Spectator with special emphasis on Haywood’s political stance or her portrayal of women; however, scholars have not adequately addressed Haywood’s recommendation to her readers that the casual study of natural philosophy was appropriate for women in so far as it would prepare women to partake in polite conversation, and thereby create improvement within their community. Scholars have also disregarded Haywood’s prescription of moderation when attending social spaces and public events as the over attendance of these events would distract readers from their goal of personal improvement. In this thesis, I examine Haywood’s use of the eighteenth-century concepts of improvement and politeness as they related to appropriate conversation topics and polite sociability. Savannah Leigh Welch Nakamura May 2018 REFORM THE MORALS AND IMPROVE THE MANNERS: IMPROVEMENT AND POLITENESS IN THE FEMALE SPECTATOR by Savannah Leigh Welch Nakamura A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History in the College of Social Sciences California State University, Fresno May 2018 APPROVED For the Department of History: We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's degree. Savannah Leigh Welch Nakamura Thesis Author Maritere López (Chair) History Brad Jones History Lori Clune History For the University Graduate Committee: Dean, Division of Graduate Studies AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION OF MASTER’S THESIS X I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship. Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from me. Signature of thesis author: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to extend thanks to the Graduate Net Initiative that provided generous support in the form of a fellowship. My sincere thanks to Brad Jones and Lori Clune, who provided valuable feedback and encouragement throughout the thesis writing process. Thank you to Maritere López for your guidance, advice, and wisdom during these past three years. I would also like to thank my parents, Paul and Lynne, and my siblings, Zach, Ari, and Toni, for their constant support. Finally, thank to you my husband, Brice, for all of the commas you deleted, all of the cookies you baked, and all of the encouragement and love that you have shared with me during this process. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................ 1 CHAPTER 2: SALLIED FORTH WITH OUR MICROSCOPES ........................ 20 CHAPTER 3: YET, HERE ARE DANGEROUS EXCITEMENTS ..................... 40 CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION ............................................................................... 57 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................. 62 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION I was willing to treat them with the tenderness of a mother, but not, like some mothers, to continue my indulgence to their ruin. – The examples I gave of good and bad behaviour, was not meerly to divert them, but to inspire them with an ambition of imitating the one, and a care to avoid the other. -Eliza Haywood, The Female Spectator In Book Five of The Female Spectator, a 1740s British periodical, Eliza Haywood presents her readers with the story of beautiful young Amasina and her fiancé, Palamon. In an ill-fated attempt to increase the love and attention of Palamon, Amasina decided to “indulge her natural propensity to gaiety, in going to all public places.”1 Again and again, Palamon tried to dissuade Amasina from attending these public entertainments: “he intreated her with all the moving eloquence of an honourable affection, that for her own sake, if not for his, she would reflect on her present conduct, and return once more to her amiable former self.”2 Amasina’s mother also encouraged her to refrain from attending such diversions, and to be “more cautious to prevent scandal.”3 Despite their pleas, Amasina believed that her actions were increasing Palamon’s love for her and she continued to attend the public engagements. Her refusal to remain at home upset Palamon, and “all the spells her inchanting beauty had laid on him, lost their power at once.”4 He decided to end their engagement and move to the countryside, leaving Amasina heartbroken and despondent. Soon after his arrival in the 1 Eliza Haywood, The Female Spectator, 2nd ed, vol. I (London: T. Gardner, 1748), 245. I have retained the original spelling and punctuation for all quotes from Haywood. 2 Haywood, The Female Spectator, vol. I, 247. 3 Haywood, The Female Spectator, vol. I, 247. 4 Haywood, The Female Spectator, vol. I, 250. 2 2 countryside, Palamon met and married a young woman and had a happy marriage, while Amasina ended in misery with “nobody in reality to accuse but herself.”5 Haywood’s message to her readers is clear: avoid the ruin of Amasina, who dedicated herself to public diversions and lost the love of an honorable man. Rather, be like the woman who won the love of Palamon through her “charms” and “perfections of the mind.”6 These two components, the rejection of the public entertainment and pursuit of betterment, make up Haywood’s program of improvement and politeness in The Female Spectator. In this study, I investigate the eighteenth-century concepts of improvement and politeness, as presented in Eliza Haywood’s The Female Spectator. As the author of the first periodical written for women by a woman, a study of Haywood and her writings provides valuable insight into how the English Enlightenment concept of improvement was presented to middle-class British women.7 Specifically, I focus on Haywood’s use of natural philosophy as a tool to improve oneself, and on the social spaces that Haywood warned against as detractors for improvement. The ultimate goal of improvement, as implied by Haywood’s text, was politeness, or appropriate social interactions. The Female Spectator, printed between 1744 and 1746, is a collection of twenty-four monthly installments, or as Haywood terms them, “books.” Each book consists of a series of essays, anecdotes, and correspondence which discuss proper female behavior. With topics ranging from drinking tea, to choosing husbands, to 5 Haywood, The Female Spectator, vol. I, 255, 253. 6 Haywood, The Female Spectator, vol. I, 255. 7 Lynn Marie Wright and Donald J. Newman, introduction to Fair Philosopher: Eliza Haywood and “The Female Spectator,” ed. Lynn Marie Wright and Donald J. Newman (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2006), 22. 3 3 attending masquerades, the books blend “social commentary, moral instruction, and advice.”8 To offer her advice, Haywood utilized a panel of four female personae, each representing a different background. The first is the Female Spectator, described as someone who “never was a beauty,” and was “very far from being young,” but who had lived her life in such a way as to be aware of the consequences of poor choices and folly.9 She spent her youth in “a continued round of what I then called pleasure, and my whole time engrossed by a hurry of promiscuous diversions.”10 Her experience, paired with her substantial education, prompts the Female Spectator to share her knowledge so that “the public may reap some benefit from it.”11 The Female Spectator introduces three other women to balance her own point of view. Each additional member of the “club,” as Haywood calls them, represents “the three estates of women”: a virgin, a wife, and a widow.12 Haywood introduces Euphrosine, a young maiden so accomplished that “beauty is the least distinguished part of her.”13 The third contributor is Mira, a happily married woman from a good family. The final voice is the unnamed Widow of Quality, who, despite her widowed status, continues to participate in “all the modish diversions of the times” as long as they are “consistent with innocence and honour.”14 Haywood rarely identifies the views of these writers individually, instead writing with one voice, that of the Female Spectator. 8 Wright and Newman, Introduction,13. 9 Haywood, The Female Spectator, vol. I, 2. 10 Haywood, The Female Spectator, vol. I, 2. 11 Haywood, The Female Spectator, vol. I, 2. 12 Patrick Spedding, A Bibliography of Eliza Haywood (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2004), 431. 13 Haywood, The Female Spectator, vol. I, 4. 14 Haywood, The Female Spectator, vol. I, 4. 4 4 However, by suggesting that each of these personae were involved in crafting the content of the periodical, Haywood bolsters her position to provide advice, as it appears to be agreed upon by each of these women. Together this committee of women makes up the singular voice of The Female Spectator. In addition to the four women of The Female Spectator, Haywood also includes a number of other voices in the form of letters. In the periodical, Haywood implies that readers sent these letters to her publisher. However, most scholars agree that Haywood herself wrote the letters, likely inspired by real letters she may have received.
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