ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830 Volume 3 Issue 1 Volume 3.1 (Spring 2013) Article 1 2013 The Female Quixote as Promoter of Social Literacy Amy Hodges University of Arkansas Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/abo Part of the Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons, Educational Methods Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Hodges, Amy (2013) "The Female Quixote as Promoter of Social Literacy," ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830: Vol. 3 : Iss. 1 , Article 1. https://www.doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/2157-7129.3.1.1 Available at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/abo/vol3/iss1/1 This Scholarship is brought to you for free and open access by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830 by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. The Female Quixote as Promoter of Social Literacy Abstract In Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote, the unruly Arabella clashes with the eighteenth century’s conception of England as an orderly, unromantic site of commercial trade. Arabella’s romances prompt her to expect certain power structures from English society; she invites others to see her body as a spectacle and expects that her actions will solidify her status as a powerful woman. Yet Lennox reveals that English society sees Arabella’s body not as powerful, but as an object upon which they may construct their own potential site for the exchange of knowledge, an objectification that neither Arabella nor Lennox are prepared to accept.