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Women, Nationalism and the Romantic Stage: Theatre her she recaptured much ofthe pleas- that revise the literary/dramatic invested in matters of public per- ure of her girlhood, exploring Eng- history of this field. Two new books formance." Marvin Carlson inter- lish Bay and Burrard Inlet. She made have joined the conversation: Women prets Inchbald's biographical-criti- many other friends in Vancouver in British Romantic Theatre, and cal prefaces, concluding that in the and her death from breast cancer in Women, Nationalism and the act of critical writing she "dared to 1913 occasioned the sincere and Romantic Stage. Each, in its own enter a domain traditionally reserved moving tribute of a public funeral. way, questions central precepts un- for men," though she buttressed her She was buried at her favourite spot derpinning romanticism, including authority by confining her critiques in Stanley Park where her memorial conventional periodization, genres, largely to moral concerns associated stands today. and definitions of drama, theatre, with women. Thomas Crochunis Charlotte Gray has given us this and performance. Each argues that explicates what he calls the "per- present memorial, one which will women's relationship to dramatic1 formanceofauthorship" in Inchbald stand for decades as a faithful por- theatrical activity, whether as actress, and Baillie and how this perform- trait of this complex, talented, and playwright, critic, or manager, ancewas conditioned by gender. Jane gallant woman. expresses ideological ambivalence: at Moody looks at how translations of once subversive and emancipatory plays by Inchbald and Anne Plumptre and at the same time reaffirming dramatize female identity, exploring patriarchy and the status quo. in particular "the constraints and Women in British Romantic Thea- liberties offemale authorship in trans- WOMEN, tre is a rich compendium of essays lation." Three essays specifically ex- NATIONALISM AND that expand the conventional pa- amine the construction of gender in THE ROMANTIC rameters of theatrical studies and individual plays: Marjean Puritan is STAGE: THEATRE elaborate the nature of women=s attentive to the means by which AND POLITICS IN conflicted relationship to the art and Baillie's The T~~alchallengesgender business of theatre. Jeffrey Cox con- roles while participating in a social BRITAIN. 1780-1800. siders the social and cultural power system that commodifies women as held by playwright Joanna Baillie, objects of marriage; Jane Scott's col- Betsy Bolton actress Sarah Siddons, but also Anna lectively written essay on the pro- Cambridge: Cambridge University Margaretta Larpent, wife ofthe Lord duction of "Camilla the Amazon" Press. 2001 Chamberlain=s Examiner of Plays reveals how the play "reinforces and between 1778 and 1824. He asserts disrupts conventions articulated in WOMEN IN BRITISH that, while the individual gender her female characters." Julie A. ROMANTIC THEATRE politics of these women was Carlson analyzes plays on remorse by liberatory, it was "most often exer- Baillie and Inchbald and "their ef- Catherine Burroughs, Ed. cised. in support of a conservative forts to reform love and female beauty Cambridge: Cambridge University ideology." Greg Kuich reflects upon in the theatre." Press, 2000 the reviewing industry and what he Women, Nationalism and the Ro- calls the "conflictingposturesofwel- mantic Stage focuses its polemic on REVIEWED BY KYM BIRD come, containment, and threatened the "interrelation among genre, gen- resistance" that distinguished its re- der, aniews. The first chapter intro- sponse to the workofwomen drama- duces the authors and their political Beginning almost fifteen years ago tists like Baillie, Hannah Cowley, and intellectual environment, the with Jacqueline Pearson's The Elizabeth Inchbald, Mary Robinson, changing critical fashions with re- Prostitz~tedMuse (1988), women's and Jane West. Katherine Newey spect to didactic fiction, and the drama and theatrical activity in discusses how the construction of methodologies and terminology for England during the romantic period dominant discourses ofnational iden- the study. The subsequent chapters has flowered into a variegated field of tity and the nation state are formed explore the authors' experiments with study. Such works as Sandra in the historical tragedies- of Hannah the novel form until ultimate aban- Richard's The Rise oftheeEnglishActress More, AnnYearsley, Frances Burney, donment of it in favour of (1993). Ellen Donkin's Getting into and Mary Mitford, a subject that is nonfictional moral and religiouswrit- theAct (1 995), Catherine Burrough's refocused in Jeanne Moskal's chap- ings, which most had previously pur- Claset Stages (1997), and Judith ter on Marianna Starke's The Sword sued together with fiction, as well as Pascoe's Romantic Theatricality of Peace. Susan Bennet argues that conduct literature and philanthropic (1997) have constructed a canon of Baillie's dramas reconstitute thegenre activities. womenwriters, genericpropensities, of closet drama and examines the In the introduf history and his- and dominant political conditions ways in which they were "deeply torical context. She also gives signifr- VOLUME 23. NUMBER 1 cant critical quarter to the ambiva- common evaluation and dismissal of institutes self-discipline, is "most in lent position women occupied as they these conservative authors by finding evidence in didactic fiction, which moved into the arenas of theatre and agency even in their complicity with takes as its focus the reform of both politics and how, under their pen, patriarchal power structures. She characters and readers." However, generic conventions were disrupted. presents her approach as that of Wood's subsequent conclusions tend Both books are well worth the cultural studies rather than literary towards a conception of her authors read. Taken together, they represent scholarship. This permits her to as agents as much as subjects of the asignificant contribution to the field disclaim any attempt, otherwise ideologies of their time, in accord- of British romantic literature. frequent in revisionary histories of ance with Foucault's positive mean- "underread" fiction, to recover their ing of power, in Power/Knowledge. once popular novels from readerly More distinctively, she makes expert neglect and to engage in the question and thorough use ofGPrard Generte's of canonicity. narratological methodology for close MODES OF The study contributes to three analysis of aspects of the novels in DISCIPLINE: major critical enquiries. First, female order to produce a nuanced and per- WOMEN, voice and authority: Wood explores suasive account of her authors' di- CONSERVATISM AND the paradox constituted by the con- verse and complex negotiations of THE NOVEL AFTER dition of conservative women who the political and social power struc- fulfilled their prescribed feminine tures. For considerations ofthe moral THE FRENCH nurturing role as writers of "medici- effect on the reader, in the absence of REVOLUTION nal" didactic fiction, which requires suchscholarship on publishers, read- an authoritarian, that is, "mascu- ership, and the market as is so richly Lisa Wood line" authorial voice. Secondly, the available for the Victorian period, Lewisburg Bucknell University problem ofperiodization, in this case she focuses on the "narrate" (Genette) Press, 2003 of Romanticism: these authors are or the "implied reader," in Wolfgang best described as "Anti-Romantics" Iser's reception aesthetics, rather than as they rejected and campaigned on the historical reader. However, REVIEWD BY GISELA ARGYLE against the Romantic values of 'indi- she complements this method with vidualism, solitude, passion, imagi- references to periodical reviews. The Lisa Wood's study adds substantially nation, nonconformity" in favour of first chapter introduces the authors to current scholarship on the "political, social, religious, and liter- and their political and intellectual intersections of gender and genre. ary conformity." Wood rejects any environment, the changing critical Aiming at a revisionary, inclusive extension ofthe term "Romanticism" fashions with respect to didactic fic- literary history, she discusses seven to include her authors, for instance, tion, and the methodologies and ter- British women novelists who in a "feminine Romanticism" pro- minology for the study. The subse- belonged to Mary Wollstonecraft's posed by Anne Mellor, since that quent chapters explore the authors' generation but unlike her to the anti- would diminish her authors' explicit experiments with the novel form until revolutionary camp in the "war of opposition to what they saw as "ro- their ultimate abandonment of it in ideas." The authors are Hannah mantic" values. Thirdly, British criti- favour of nonfictional moral and re- More, Jane West, Mary Hays, Laetita cal debates on the genre ofthe novel: ligiouswritings, which most had pre- Mathilda Hawkins, Mary Brunton, the didactic novel and critical con- viously pursued together with fic- and Jane Porter. Unlike their radical cern with the moral message in fic- tion, aswell as conduct literature and colleagues, they readily found tion enjoyed a short dominance to philanthropic activities. ~ublishers,asyrnpathetic public, and give way to a general rejection didac- In theintroductorychapter, Wood approving critics for their didactic ticism and to critical emphasis on suggests that her study of the anti- fiction. However, the appeal oftheir aesthetic rather than moral criteria. revolutionary women authors may reactionary didaxis
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