DOCSLIB.ORG

I “Heroic Disobedience”: the Forced Marriage Plot, 1748-1880 by Leah

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
I “Heroic Disobedience”: the Forced Marriage Plot, 1748-1880 by Leah “Heroic Disobedience”: The Forced Marriage Plot, 1748-1880 by Leah A. Grisham-Webber B.A. in English, May 2012, Miami University M.A. in English, May 2014, Boston College A Dissertation submitted to The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences Of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 31, 2020 Dissertation directed by Maria Frawley Professor of English i The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Leah A. Grisham-Webber has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of 24 April 2020. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation. “Heroic Disobedience”: The Forced Marriage Plot, 1748-1880 Leah A. Grisham-Webber Dissertation Research Committee: Maria Frawley, Professor of English, Dissertation Director Daniel DeWispelare, Associate Professor of English, Committee Member Talia Schaffer, Professor of English, Committee Member ii © 2020 by Leah Grisham-Webber All rights reserved iii Dedication For Nick and Nora iv Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank my committee members: Maria Frawley, Tara Wallace, and Daniel DeWispelare. They have all provided invaluable advice and feedback. Without realizing it, the beginnings of this project began to germinate in the independent study Maria and I undertook my first semester as a PhD student; our discussions there (and since) have helped me grow as a scholar. Daniel showed me the ropes when I was a new PhD student and became my go-to for all sorts of questions and issues. I am so thankful that my time at George Washington University overlapped with Tara’s tenure here; her encyclopedic knowledge of British literature and grammar rules never cease to amaze me. I am so grateful for their mentorship and the many hours they have spent reading my work over the years. I would also like to thank my outside dissertation readers, Talia Schaffer and Deborah Denenholz Morse, for dedicating time to this project. Women are often asked to undertake a lop-sided amount of academic service; they did not have to say yes to this, but they did – for which I am so grateful. There are many additional members of my GW family to thank, including Holly Dugan for being such an excellent role model and Connie Kibler for everything she does for the department. Working with you in literature and the financial imagination taught me so much about teaching undergraduates. To my friends and collaborators Vicki Barnett-Woods, Sam Yates, Tyler Christenson, Beth TeVault, and Joshua Benson: you all pushed me to be my best and kept me sane. I know that you all will do wonderful things and I am so glad that we have been a part of each other’s journeys. I also owe thanks to the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences for awarding me a Summer Dissertation Fellowship, which allowed me to finish this project in a timely v manner. The Graduate Teaching Instructorship I was awarded from the CCAS has also been immensely helpful to me as both a scholar and a teacher through allowing me to create and teach nineteenth-century British horror stories to undergraduates. Nick and Nora: to say thank you does not begin to cover how much gratitude I feel toward you both. I don’t know what is next for me but knowing you will both be a part of it makes me unafraid. vi Abstract of Dissertation “Heroic Disobedience”: The Forced Marriage Plot, 1748-1880 This dissertation examines eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British novels that use forced marriage as a plot structure to expose and subvert the oppression of women in British society. Each of the novels studied at length re-writes the forced marriage plot of Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, highlighting the ways in which contemporaneous economic forces – the rise of capitalism in the eighteenth century, the slave trade, and speculation – drive the subordination of women. The first chapter of the project shows that, despite the depth of Clarissa Harlowe’s interiority and the extent to which the mercenary nature of her family’s greed is criticized, this novel promotes oppressive patriarchal ideologies. Beginning with chapter two, the project examines novels that mirror Clarissa’s plot with an important difference: they celebrate women who rebel against the oppressive patriarchalism of their respective periods. Chapter two analyzes novels by two of Richardson’s peers, Eliza Haywood and Charlotte Lennox, whose novels The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751) and The Female Quixote (1752) offer contemporary reactions to Clarissa. Chapter three focuses on forced marriage plot narratives, Mary Robinson’s Angelina: A Novel (1796) and Charlotte Smith’s novella “The Story of Henrietta” (1800), that situate forced marriage within the Atlantic slave trade to expose the material connections between the oppression of the enslaved and the patriarchal oppression of British women. Next, a brief Interchapter explains Jane Austen’s connection to the forced marriage plot. Novels by Charles Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, 1838-9, and Dombey and Son, 1848) and the little-studied Elizabeth Stone (William Langshawe, the Cotton Lord, 1842) move chapter four into post-industrial vii England during the rise of stock-market speculation and debates surrounding the morality of capitalism. Finally, chapter five examines Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now (1874-5) alongside contemporary commentary on gambling. viii Table of Contents Dedication……………………………………………………………...…….………..….iv Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………..v Abstract of Dissertation…………………………………………………………………...ii List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………..x Introduction………………………………………………………………….…………….1 Chapter 1 “Such Terms, Such Settlements!”: Clarissa Harlowe and the Patriarchy…….33 . Chapter 2 “You are a strange Girl”: Lennox and Haywood Redefine Femininity………72 Chapter 3: “Will there not be virtue in my resistance?”: resisting tyranny in Charlotte Smith’s “The Story of Henrietta” and Mary Robinson’s Angelina; A Novel…………..108 Interchapter: “Young Ladies that have no Money are to be pitied”: Jane Austen and the Forced Marriage plot…………………………...……………………..…………….160 Chapter 4 “Selling a girl”: Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Stone, and Post-Industrial Patriarchy……………………………………………………………………………….166 Chapter 5 “Of course I have to think of myself”: Trollope’s Heroines and the Gambling Economy…………………………………………………………………….221 Coda “I do not repent”: Heroic Disobedience Beyond 1880…………………………...270 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………277 Appendix………………………………………………………………………………..324 ix List of Figures Figure 1: Title page of Richardson’s “A Collection”….………………………………...63 Figure 2: Betsy and Munden…………………………………………………………...101 Figure 3: James Gillray’s “New Morality”……………………………………………..113 Figure 4: Salvator Rosa, “Landscape with Tree Trunk”………………………………..116 Figure 5: The Great Social Evil……………………………………………………..…183 x Introduction In 1747-48, Samuel Richardson’s second novel, Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady, was published to instant success. The novel went to a second edition in 1749, and a third greatly expanded edition in 1751, which to this day is one of the longest English-language novels ever published; coming in at over one million words, the third edition of Clarissa is almost twice as long as David Foster-Wallace’s infamously lengthy Infinite Jest (1996). Additionally, Clarissa’s success has also been sustained. As the appendix to this dissertation shows, at least 20 versions of Clarissa were published in England between 1751 and 1902, not including many pirated editions printed without Richardson’s consent. Several stage adaptations were performed throughout this period, including one in Paris that received rave reviews from Charles Dickens. In his Introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of Clarissa (1986, 2004), Angus Ross notes that Richardson’s masterpiece has been in print ever since the first two volumes appeared in 1747 since Richardson “had the luck or prescience to hit on a story that became a myth to his own age, and remains so yet” (18). As the following chapters explore, Clarissa is indeed a novel that experienced immense relevancy long after Richardson’s death, inspiring a ubiquity of authors to emulate Clarissa’s plot. This dissertation is in many ways about the mythos of Clarissa, to borrow Ross’ terminology, and the ways in which it impacted British literature throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Throughout this project, I use Clarissa’s plot – and later novels that emulate it – to explore the deliberate processes by which women are taught that they are powerless, why this is done, and how, according to authors in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England, women can circumvent the cycle of powerlessness and reclaim autonomy. I 1 make two key claims throughout the project. The first is that beginning in the mid- eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century, novelists deployed forced marriage plots, which I define as plots in which a father figure attempts to force his daughter into a marriage that she does not want but that would be financially beneficial to himself, to critique manifestations of mercenary wealth accumulation and the specific ways that women suffered under this system. Samuel Richardson, though not the first British author to use this plot, popularized it in his 1747-48 novel Clarissa, providing inspiration for authors in generations to come, cementing his legacy as a pioneer in representing female subjectivity.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Entre Classicismo E Romantismo. Ensaios De Cultura E Literatura
    Entre Classicismo e Romantismo. Ensaios de Cultura e Literatura Organização Jorge Bastos da Silva Maria Zulmira Castanheira Studies in Classicism and Romanticism 2 FLUP | CETAPS, 2013 Studies in Classicism and Romanticism 2 Studies in Classicism and Romanticism is an academic series published on- line by the Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies (CETAPS) and hosted by the central library of the Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, Portugal. Studies in Classicism and Romanticism has come into being as a result of the commitment of a group of scholars who are especially interested in English literature and culture from the mid-seventeenth to the mid- nineteenth century. The principal objective of the series is the publication in electronic format of monographs and collections of essays, either in English or in Portuguese, with no pre-established methodological framework, as well as the publication of relevant primary texts from the period c. 1650–c. 1850. Series Editors Jorge Bastos da Silva Maria Zulmira Castanheira Entre Classicismo e Romantismo. Ensaios de Cultura e Literatura Organização Jorge Bastos da Silva Maria Zulmira Castanheira Studies in Classicism and Romanticism 2 FLUP | CETAPS, 2013 Editorial 2 Sumário Apresentação 4 Maria Luísa Malato Borralho, “Metamorfoses do Soneto: Do «Classicismo» ao «Romantismo»” 5 Adelaide Meira Serras, “Science as the Enlightened Route to Paradise?” 29 Paula Rama-da-Silva, “Hogarth and the Role of Engraving in Eighteenth-Century London” 41 Patrícia Rodrigues, “The Importance of Study for Women and by Women: Hannah More’s Defence of Female Education as the Path to their Patriotic Contribution” 56 Maria Leonor Machado de Sousa, “Sugestões Portuguesas no Romantismo Inglês” 65 Maria Zulmira Castanheira, “O Papel Mediador da Imprensa Periódica na Divulgação da Cultura Britânica em Portugal ao Tempo do Romantismo (1836-1865): Matérias e Imagens” 76 João Paulo Ascenso P.
    [Show full text]
  • The Life of the Female Mind: Hester Mulso Chapone and the Gendered Rhetoric of Experience
    The Life of the Female Mind: Hester Mulso Chapone and the Gendered Rhetoric of Experience Bethany Mannon Abstract: This article studies the writings of Hester Mulso Chapone (1727-1801) a prolific member of the late-eighteenth century Bluestocking circle. Working within genres traditionally available to women, most notably the conversational rhetoric of letters, Chapone advocates for an expanded social role and rhetorical education for young women. These letters later circulated publicly as Letters on Filial Obedience (1751) and Letters on the Improvement of the Mind (1773). Chapone’s participation in a tradition of feminist writing deserves attention be- cause of her success foregrounding personal experience as a source of authority and deploying personal writing to persuade, inform, and confront prevailing power structures. Keywords: Conversational Rhetoric, Feminist Rhetoric, Life Writing, Bluestockings Hester Mulso Chapone (1727-1801) wrote prolifically in the eighteenth century and, together with the writers Elizabeth Montagu, Catharine Macaulay, Charlotte Lennox, Elizabeth Carter, Sarah Scott, Hannah More, and Frances Burney, influenced British intellectual culture. A member of this Bluestocking generation, Chapone was known during her life for her essays, letters, conver- sation, poetry, and advice on the education of young women. She maintained a reputation as an intellectual moralist into the nineteenth century, as her writings continued to be widely printed and read. Chapone worked within the genres of letters and conduct books—traditionally accessible to women—but expanded those genres to confront eighteenth-century notions of virtue and education. Her Letters on Filial Obedience (1751) and Letters on the Improvement of the Mind (1773) foreground her youth and femininity; she performs a Peitho Journal: Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • The Times and Influence of Samuel Johnson
    UNIVERZITA PALACKÉHO V OLOMOUCI FILOZOFICKÁ FAKULTA Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Martina Tesařová The Times and Influence of Samuel Johnson Bakalářská práce Studijní obor: Anglická filologie Vedoucí práce: Mgr. Ema Jelínková, Ph.D. OLOMOUC 2013 Prohlášení Prohlašuji, že jsem bakalářskou práci na téma „Doba a vliv Samuela Johnsona“ vypracovala samostatně a uvedla úplný seznam použité a citované literatury. V Olomouci dne 15.srpna 2013 …………………………………….. podpis Poděkování Ráda bych poděkovala Mgr. Emě Jelínkové, Ph.D. za její stále přítomný humor, velkou trpělivost, vstřícnost, cenné rady, zapůjčenou literaturu a ochotu vždy pomoci. Rovněž děkuji svému manželovi, Joe Shermanovi, za podporu a jazykovou korekturu. Johnson, to be sure, has a roughness in his manner, but no man alive has a more tender heart. —James Boswell Table of Contents 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1 2. The Age of Johnson: A Time of Reason and Good Manners ......................... 3 3. Samuel Johnson Himself ................................................................................. 5 3.1. Life and Health ......................................................................................... 5 3.2. Works ..................................................................................................... 10 3.3. Johnson’s Club ....................................................................................... 18 3.4. Opinions and Practice ............................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan SOCIAL CRITICISM in the ENGLISH NOVEL
    This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received 68-8810 CLEMENTS, Frances Marion, 1927- SOCIAL CRITICISM IN THE ENGLISH NOVEL: 1740-1754. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1967 Language and Literature, general University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan SOCIAL CRITICISM IN THE ENGLISH NOVEL 1740- 175^ DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Frances Marion Clements, B.A., M.A. * # * * # * The Ohio State University 1967 Approved by (L_Lji.b A< i W L _ Adviser Department of English ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank the Library of Congress and the Folger Shakespeare Library for allowing me to use their resources. I also owe a large debt to the Newberry Library, the State Library of Ohio and the university libraries of Yale, Miami of Ohio, Ohio Wesleyan, Chicago, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin for their generosity in lending books. Their willingness to entrust precious eighteenth-century volumes to the postal service greatly facilitated my research. My largest debt, however, is to my adviser, Professor Richard D. Altick, who placed his extensive knowledge of British social history and of the British novel at my disposal, and who patiently read my manuscript more times than either of us likes to remember. Both his criticism and his praise were indispensable. VITA October 17, 1927 Born - Lynchburg, Virginia 1950 .......... A. B., Randolph-Macon Women's College, Lynchburg, Virginia 1950-1959• • • • United States Foreign Service 1962-1967. • • • Teaching Assistant, Department of English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1962 .....
    [Show full text]
  • Women, Morality and Advice Literature, Parts 1 to 3
    Women, Morality and Advice Literature, Parts 1 to 3 WOMEN, MORALITY AND ADVICE LITERATURE Manuscripts and Rare Printed Works of Hannah More (1745-1833) and her circle from the Clark Library, Los Angeles Part 1: Manuscripts, First Editions and Rare Printed Works of Hannah More Part 2: Gift Books, Memoirs, Pamphlets and the Cheap Repository Tracts Part 3: Writings by The Eminent Blue Stockings Contents listing PUBLISHER'S NOTE Hannah More's Public Voice in Georgian Britain by Patricia Demers Hannah More, Revolutionary Reformer by Anne K. Mellor CONTENTS OF REELS - PART 1 DETAILED LISTING - PART 1 CONTENTS OF REELS - PART 2 DETAILED LISTING - PART 2 CONTENTS OF REELS - PART 3 CHEAP REPOSITORY TRACTS LISTING Women, Morality and Advice Literature, Parts 1 to 3 Publisher's Note Women, Morality and Advice Literature focuses on the life and works of Hannah More (1745-1833), one of the best selling and most influential women authors of her time, in England. Through her writings, philanthropy, political activities, and personal relationships More set out to lead a moral revolution of the nation’s manners and principles. Writing in different literary genres and styles her printed works span a period of some five decades. Plays, poetry and prose written in different styles, were aimed at all levels of society – from the aristocracy to the lower-class reader. This major collection of books and autograph letters by Hannah More is held in the Special Collections of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, at the University of California Los Angeles. In recent years, with the benefit of the Ahmanson Foundation, the library has been collecting materials from the later eighteenth century to the early 1800s, and is now recognised by scholars as one of the great centres in the world for seventeenth and eighteenth century studies.
    [Show full text]
  • A Safe Place
    A SAFE PLACE: JANE AUSTEN AND THE RICHARDSONIAN INHERITANCE A SAFE PLACE: JANE AUSTEN AND THE RICHARDSONIAN INHERITANCE by NANCY RUTH FAWCETT, B. A., M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University September 1987 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (1987) McMASTER UNIVERSITY (English) Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: A Safe Place: Jane Austen and the Richardsonian Inheritance AUTHOR: Nancy Ruth Fawcett, B. A. (Wilfrid Laurier University) M. A. (McMaster University) SUPERVISOR: Doctor D. Blewett NUMBER OF PAGES: vi, 233 ii ABSTRACT Jane Austen's novels have often been viewed as realistic portrayals of the time in which she lived. This paper attempts to modify this view by examining her work in the context of the novels of Samuel Richardson, the writer whom she reportedly admired above all others. There are many differences between the two au­ thors, but their subject matter is essentially the same: the hearts and minds of marriageable young women. Richardson's heroines, however, are threatened and harassed while Austen's are free to experience without fear, and to learn without danger. In "Sir Char­ les Grandison or The Happy Man", a parody she wrote of Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison, Austen satirizes Richardson's timorous hero­ ines and aggressive heroes; in her novels, women are self-assured and men are not frightening. An examination of the social history of the eighteenth ce n­ tu ry and the letters of Jane Austen, however, demonstrates that the world of her novels is not the one she knew.
    [Show full text]
  • Women and Classical Learning in Frances Burney's Novels
    Bridgewater State University Virtual Commons - Bridgewater State University Honors Program Theses and Projects Undergraduate Honors Program 5-9-2017 “Injuring Her Beauty by Study”: Women and Classical Learning in Frances Burney’s Novels Stephanie Diehl Follow this and additional works at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/honors_proj Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Diehl, Stephanie. (2017). “Injuring Her Beauty by Study”: Women and Classical Learning in Frances Burney’s Novels. In BSU Honors Program Theses and Projects. Item 199. Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/honors_proj/199 Copyright © 2017 Stephanie Diehl This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. “Injuring Her Beauty by Study” Women and Classical Learning in Frances Burney’s Novels Stephanie Diehl Submitted in Partial Completion of the Requirements for Departmental Honors in English Bridgewater State University May 9, 2017 Dr. Elizabeth Veisz, Thesis Director Dr. Kevin Kalish, Committee Member Dr. Cynthia Ricciardi, Committee Member Diehl 1 “Injuring Her Beauty by Study”: Women and Classical Learning in Frances Burney’s Novels Eighteenth-century author Frances Burney uses her novels as vehicles to engage in contemporary discussions about methods of self-education. Seen as inferior tools for self- education, novels were, according to Samuel Johnson, “written chiefly to the young, the ignorant, and the idle, to whom they serve as lectures of conduct, and introductions into life” (176). To such thinkers as Johnson, an education from a novel could never compete with the classical education available to the privileged men at university. However, this education was denied to women, and it was a popular belief that a classically educated woman was “injuring her beauty by study” (Camilla 46).
    [Show full text]
  • Pre 1900 English & Continental Literature a Miscellany from The
    Pre 1900 English & Continental Literature A Miscellany from the Living Room On-Line Only: Catalogue # 214 Second Life Books Inc. ABAA- ILAB P.O. Box 242, 55 Quarry Road Lanesborough, MA 01237 413-447-8010 fax: 413-499-1540 Email: [email protected] Pre 1900 English & Continental Literature On-Line Only Catalogue # 214 Terms : All books are fully guaranteed and returnable within 7 days of receipt. Massachusetts residents please add 5% sales tax. Postage is additional. Libraries will be billed to their requirements. Deferred billing available upon request. We accept MasterCard, Visa and American Express. ALL ITEMS ARE IN VERY GOOD OR BETTER CONDITION , EXCEPT AS NOTED . Orders may be made by mail, email, phone or fax to: Second Life Books, Inc. P. O. Box 242, 55 Quarry Road Lanesborough, MA. 01237 Phone (413) 447-8010 Fax (413) 499-1540 Email:[email protected] Search all our books at our web site: www.secondlifebooks.com or www.ABAA.org . 1. [ABANY, Marie-Therese Peroux d']. SEILA, FILLE DE JEPHTE, Juge et Prince des Hebreux, par Mme DA***. Paris: Le Clere, 1801. First Edition. Two volumes in one. 12mo, pp. xii, 332, (1); (3) 348. Engraved frontispiece in each volume. Bound in little worn contemporary French calf, spine gilt. A very good clean copy. Querard I, p. 2. Rare, not in OCLC. OCLC does list another book by the author, a poem on Jeanne D'Arc showing one location at the Library of Congress. [24100] $650.00 We have not been able to find out anything about the author; but the story comes from the Biblical story of Jephte which is narrated in chapters 11 and 12 of the Book of Judges.
    [Show full text]
  • The History of British Women's Writing, 1750–1830
    The History of British Women’s Writing, 1750–1830 The History of British Women’s Writing General Editors: Jennie Batchelor and Cora Kaplan Advisory Board: Isobel Armstrong, Rachel Bowlby, Carolyn Dinshaw, Margaret Ezell, Margaret Ferguson, Isobel Grundy, and Felicity Nussbaum The History of British Women’s Writing is an innovative and ambitious monograph series that seeks both to synthesize the work of several generations of feminist scholars, and to advance new directions for the study of women’s writing. Volume editors and contributors are leading scholars whose work collectively refl ects the global excellence in this expanding fi eld of study. It is envisaged that this series will be a key resource for specialist and non-specialist scholars and students alike. Titles include: Caroline Bicks and Jennifer Summit (editors) THE HISTORY OF BRITISH WOMEN’S WRITING, 1500–1610 Volume Two Ros Ballaster (editor) THE HISTORY OF BRITISH WOMEN’S WRITING, 1690–1750 Volume Four Jacqueline M. Labbe (editor) THE HISTORY OF BRITISH WOMEN’S WRITING, 1750–1830 Volume Five Forthcoming titles: Elizabeth Herbert McAvoy and Diane Watt (editors) THE HISTORY OF BRITISH WOMEN’S WRITING, 700–1500 Volume One Mihoko Suzuki (editor) THE HISTORY OF BRITISH WOMEN’S WRITING, 1610–1690 Volume Three History of British Women’s Writing Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–230–20079–1 hardback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of diffi culty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above.
    [Show full text]
  • Improper Ladies
    Improper Ladies Gender and language in Frances Burney’s The Witlings (1779)1 Carmen María Fernández Rodríguez Official School of Languages A Coruña / University of A Coruña, Spain Abstract. This paper analyzes Frances Burney’s representation of the relationship between language and gender in her play The Witlings (1779). Through an analysis of verbal exchange and the written word in The Witlings, I argue that in this work Burney revealed a good deal of her own approach to literature and her idea of woman at the end of the eighteenth century, and more specifically of the woman writer, as trapped in patriarchal culture and conditioned by her social image. Keywords: Frances Burney-eighteenth-century British drama- gender studies-English literature. 1. Introduction Frances Burney (1752-1840) was the eldest daughter of the acclaimed musicologist Dr. Charles Burney (1726-1814), who had entered the most distinguished eighteenth-century circles thanks to his friendship with the aristocrat Fulke Greville. Frances was also part of a family saga which included Captain James Burney (1750-1821), the painter Edward Francesco Burney (1760- 1848), and the not less famous Sarah Harriet Burney (1772-1844), who was also a successful writer with an interesting life and work. Burney spent some time at Windsor Court as Second Keeper of Robes to Queen Charlotte and fell in love with the French General Alexandre D’Arblay, whom she married defying parental authority. Throughout her oeuvre, Burney was a sponsor of feminism; she was highly aware of the position of the novel and the power of women novelists at that time, when many women — like Susana Centlivre, Elizabeth Inchbald, Joanna Baillie, Frances Brooke or Hannah Cowley— wrote plays and novels opposing the prejudice of being called ‘novelists’ and at the same time they vindicated the verisimilitude of their fiction (Lorenzo 26).
    [Show full text]
  • BRITISH LITERARY SALONS of the LATE EIGHTEENTH and EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURIES Copyright © Susanne Schmid, 2013
    Copyrighted material – 9780230110656 C o n t e n t s Acknowledgments vii Abbreviations xi 1 Traditions and Theories 1 Salons as Non-Places 1 Traditions I: The French Salons 3 Traditions II: The Bluestockings 7 Private, Public, and Sociable Spheres 11 The Theatricality of the Salon 15 Sources and Source Problems 17 Stages of Exploration 19 2 Mary Berry and Her British Spaces 23 Mary Berry: The Life of a Conservative Feminist 24 The Misses Otranto, Strawberry Hill, and Horace Walpole’s Family Romances 29 Anne Damer 35 From the Closet to Drury Lane: Fashionable Friends (1801) on Stage 40 3 Mary Berry as a Learned Woman: Out of the Closet 51 From a Parmesan Otranto to Malthus: Mary Berry’s Reading 51 In and Out of the Drawing-Rooms in North Audley Street and Curzon Street 55 The Freedom of the Road in France and Italy 59 Mary Berry as Editor and Historian 65 4 Holland House and Lady Holland 71 Holland House and Whig Culture 72 Lady and Lord Holland 76 Reflections on Traveling: Italy and Spain 82 Politics: Enthusiasm for Napoleon 88 Spontaneous Versification 92 Copyrighted material – 9780230110656 Copyrighted material – 9780230110656 vi Contents 5 The Holland House Set 97 The Circle and Its Oracle: The Edinburgh Review 98 Three Habitués: Samuel Rogers, Sydney Smith, and Thomas Moore 104 Byron and Holland House 109 Amorous Entanglements and Caroline Lamb’s Glenarvon 113 6 The Countess of Blessington as Hostess 119 From Irish Country Girl to London’s Outcast Queen: Lady Blessington’s Life 120 The Conversations of Lord Byron 126 “Her Genius Lay
    [Show full text]
  • Thackeray's Qualifications As a Literary Critic
    CHAPTER I Thackeray's Qualifications as a Literary Critic I. Thackeray's first qualification for literary criticism was the "aesthetic edu­ cation" which he underwent rather outside the walls of school and university huildings than inside them and which eventually proved more rewarding than the school and university curricula, although his formal education, being good, even though unfinished, does of course form a very important part of his endowment. This informal and voluntary aesthetic education had many aspects, the chief of them being the discussions on art and literature which he carried on with his school and later his University friends, his extensive reading, both his regular and his voluntary study of the art of painting in the Paris and London studios, museums and galleries, his visits to theatres and concerts, and his own early activities as writer, critic and caricaturist. One of the most important assets for him as literary critic was of course his extensive knowledge of literature, especially of those genres which later became the main subject of his critical interest (fiction, historical, biographical and travel-books), but also of those to which he paid, as critic, lesser attention (poetry and drama). We possess much direct evidence concerning his familiarity with the works of a very great number of classical, English, French, German, Italian and American writers, supplied by the records of his reading in his diaries, by the state of his library, the testimony of his friends, the records of his conversations, numerous occasional references to individual books and writers in his works and correspondence, and of course the bibliography of his criticism.
    [Show full text]