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THE CHAOTIC DOMESTIC: TRACING AFFECT in REPRESENTATIONS of NATION, CLASS, and GENDER in EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LABORING- CLASS WOMEN’S WRITING Kelly J

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THE CHAOTIC DOMESTIC: TRACING AFFECT in REPRESENTATIONS of NATION, CLASS, and GENDER in EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LABORING- CLASS WOMEN’S WRITING Kelly J University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository English Language and Literature ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations Summer 7-14-2019 THE CHAOTIC DOMESTIC: TRACING AFFECT IN REPRESENTATIONS OF NATION, CLASS, AND GENDER IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LABORING- CLASS WOMEN’S WRITING Kelly J. Hunnings University of New Mexico - Main Campus Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/engl_etds Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Hunnings, Kelly J.. "THE CHAOTIC DOMESTIC: TRACING AFFECT IN REPRESENTATIONS OF NATION, CLASS, AND GENDER IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LABORING-CLASS WOMEN’S WRITING." (2019). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/engl_etds/273 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Language and Literature ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. i Kelly J. Hunnings Candidate English Language and Literature Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Dr. Gail Houston, Chairperson Dr. Carolyn Woodward Dr. Pamela Cheek Dr. Donna Landry ii THE CHAOTIC DOMESTIC: TRACING AFFECT IN REPRESENTATIONS OF NATION, CLASS, AND GENDER IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LABORING-CLASS WOMEN’S WRITING BY KELLY J. HUNNINGS B.A., English, Classical Civilizations, East Carolina University, 2011 M.A., English, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 2013 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy English The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico July, 2019 iii DEDICATION To my parents, Sandra and Larry, who inspired in me an appreciation and understanding of what it is to work diligently and to feel deeply; to my sister, Rachel, for her kindness and spirited energy. Last, but certainly not least, to my husband, Aidan, who continually offers unwavering support, while also gently reminding me to have fun. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my committee members, Dr. Carolyn Woodward, Dr. Donna Landry, and Dr. Pamela Cheek, for generously sharing their knowledge and time on this project. A special thank you to Dr. Gail Turley Houston, the chair of this dissertation, for her constant support and encouragement. I also want to recognize several organizations that funded my research, including the American Society of Eighteenth Century Studies (ASECS) for funding research at McGill University, the National Library of Ireland, and Trinity College Dublin. v THE CHAOTIC DOMESTIC: TRACING AFFECT IN REPRESENTATIONS OF NATION, CLASS, AND GENDER IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LABORING- CLASS WOMEN’S WRITING by Kelly J. Hunnings B.A., ENGLISH & CLASSICAL CIVILZATIONS, EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY, 2011 M.A., ENGLISH, SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY CARBONDALE, 2013 PH.D., ENGLISH, THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO, 2019 ABSTRACT My dissertation traces a term I call the “chaotic domestic” in the writing of a collection of eighteenth-century women laboring-class writers: Mary Barber, Mary Collier, Mary Leapor, Ann Yearsley, and Janet Little. The chaotic domestic in the hands of these writers is multi-layered and affect-driven, focusing as they do on issues regarding nation, class, and gender. As both a poetic trope and the seeming natural and dynamic state of the domestic sphere, the image of the domestic that this set of writers represents and defines is turbulent, unruly, and one that deals with the tangled web of local and global, public and private, gendered and classist identity politics. Most importantly, I seek to demonstrate how the chaotic domestic serves as something these writers do to subvert class and gender systems that affect their public and private lives. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 1 ..................................................................................................................... 25 CHAPTER 2 ..................................................................................................................... 63 CHAPTER 3 ..................................................................................................................... 95 CHAPTER 4 ................................................................................................................... 128 CHAPTER 5 ................................................................................................................... 158 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................................ 189 1 Introduction “Affective atmospheres are shared, not solitary, and bodies are continuously busy judging their environments and responding to the atmospheres in which they find themselves." —Lauren Berlant, Cruel Optimism pg. 15 Nétwork. n.s [net and work] Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections. —Samuel Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language (1785) William J. Christmas observes that “the eighteenth century was the first period in English literary history to see the ranks of published plebeian poets increase dramatically” (17). For this project, I define laboring-class or “unlettered” poets as those who were self-taught, assisted, and financially supported by a literary patron (Christmas 40-1).1 In particular, this project focuses on a network of poets linked through their shared use of what I term a “chaotic domestic,” which I theorize and define below. The writers I include are: (1) Dublin’s Mary Barber, a self-taught merchant’s wife who was by no means wealthy, but also not a domestic servant; (2) Hampshire’s Mary Collier, who most notably wrote A Woman’s Labour in response to Stephen Duck’s A Thresher’s Labour and became the model on whom many laboring-class women based their poetry; (3) Northampton’s Mary Leapor, a domestic servant perhaps best known now for her poem, “Crumble Hall.” Later in the century there are (4) Bristol’s Ann Yearsley, whose 1 Because more of the poets I discuss are laboring class than not, and because I am responding to an already strong scholarly tradition, I will continue to use the term “laboring class” to describe the writers, movement, and style of writing outlined here in this project. For ease, the category of “self-taught” is used interchangeably with the term “laboring class.” 2 infamous dealings with her patron Hannah More have dominated twentieth century scholarly discussion of her work, and (5) Ecclefechan, Scotland’s Janet Little, who would be inspired by the work of Collier, Leapor, and Barber in the development of her own poetic responses to Robert Burns. Their writing spans nearly a century, from 1734 to 1792, and represents three nations, England, Ireland, and Scotland. In the rest of this introduction, I focus on outlining the reasons for seeing these writers as in a network even though spatially and temporally their paths never crossed. In reconfiguring traditional definitions of the domestic, we might begin by analyzing important definitions of the term itself. Beginning with the terminology used in the eighteenth century, and a foundation for definitions since, we should look at Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary, which underlines how the writers I analyze fit and do not fit the culture’s idea of the domestic. He suggests four definitions of “DOME’STICAL. DOME’STICK. [adj]”:1) Belonging to the house; not relating to things publick; 2) Private; done at home; not open; 3) Inhabiting the house; not wild; 4) Not foreign; intestine.” Surprisingly, in The Secret History of Domesticity: Public, Private, and the Division of Knowledge (2006), Michael McKeon defines the domestic not unlike Johnson, with a focus on the physical sites it entails, the home, the kitchen, and spaces that are interior, traditionally feminine, and private (436-7). What is more surprising is what neither of these writers includes. Reviewing these two definitions, it is important to note that neither writer allows room, to use a pun, for any disruptions that naturally occur in the domestic setting. Thus, these definitions do not acknowledge the hidden labor necessary to maintain order, or the daily living practices that constantly disrupt order. Indeed, they do not use “domestic” as a noun describing a servant. Hence, these 3 definitions are completely based upon and avoid the mention of the labor needed to keep the domestic domesticated. Here, again, the laborer is made invisible. In my definition of the domestic, what becomes most important is to identify laboring-class persons; I define them as people hired to help with cleaning and other tasks relating to the home. Further, I also frequently turn to alternate, adjectival definitions of the domestic: the domestic as that which refers to the actions within one’s own nation— similar to Johnson’s fourth definition, “not foreign”—and the domestic as that which is related to the running of a home or family relations. In any sense, the domestic here functions as a practical space. What I examine is how fluid this space and position is based on the female laborers’ responsibility for and lack of ownership of this site and position. I also pay attention to the other labor the women in this network shared, which was not only that they were domestic laborers—they were also
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