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The access to the contents of this doctoral thesis it is limited to the acceptance of the use conditions set by the following Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en PhD Thesis In English Studies Subtle Subversion: An Analysis of Female Desire in the Works of Frances Sheridan, Frances Brooke, Elizabeth Griffith and Sophia Lee Candidate: Supervisor: NOELIA SÁNCHEZ CAMPOS DR DAVID OWEN Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Department of English and German 2017 Subtle Subversion: An Analysis of Female Desire in the Works of Frances Sheridan, Frances Brooke, Elizabeth Griffith and Sophia Lee CONTENTS Acknowledgements...........................................................................................................5 A: OVERVIEW 1. Introduction 1.1. The Framework of the Study...........................................................................................................................7 1.2. Thesis question.....................................................................................................................13 1.3. Primary Sources.............................................................................................. .........15 B: HISTORICAL AND CONCEPTUAL CONTEXT 2. The Development of the Image of Woman Throughout the Long Eighteenth Century 2.1. The Sacrificing Woman: A Noble Act or a Sign of Entrapment.......... .......17 2.2. Women Writers’ Tradition: The Figure of the Heroine...............................22 2.3. The Epistolary Genre: Women Writers and the Creation of a Female Community............................................................................................ .......26 2.4. Resisting the Proper Lady Configuration: The Image of the Female Trickster.........................................................................................................34 2.5. The Demand to Set an Example: Morality and Didacticism in Fiction.......42 2.6. Facing Limitations: Heroines’ Struggle to Transcend their Enclosed State...............................................................................................................46 2.7. The Self-Conscious Female Narrator: Towards an Authentic Representation of the Female Self..........................................................................................49 2.8. The Paradox of the Desirability of Female Virtue: The Importance of Conventional Notions of Womanhood...................................................................................................52 2.9. Depicting Unconventional Women: The Implications behind the Femme Fatale Figure.............................................................................................................55 C: CONTENT ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 3. Frances Sheridan’s Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph 3.1. Virtue Under Threat: The Ambiguities around the Female Body...............................................................................................................59 3.1.1. The Importance of the True Self: Depicting the ‘Good’ Woman.........................................................................................63 3.1.2. The Influence of the Richardsonian Model: Is Virtue Rewarded?...................................................................................67 3.2. The Seduction Narrative .............................................................................74 3.2.1. The Unceasing Pattern of Seduction Stories: Much more than Cautionary Narratives.....................................................................................76 3.2.2. The Model of Amatory Fiction Established by Aphra Behn, Delarivier Manley and Eliza Haywood: Sheridan’s Feminist Stance...........................................................................................79 3.3. An Exploration of the Feminine Boundaries of Modesty............................92 3.3.1. The Flourishing of Conduct Literature: Delineating Women’s ‘desirable’ Qualities.......................................................................................93 3.3.2. Public vs. Private: Dismantling the Division into Separate Spheres.......................................................................................100 3.3.3. Matriarchal Narratives: Achieving Power through Submission.................................................................................104 3.3.4. Women of Quality: Conflicting Perceptions Regarding Women’s Role............................................................................................107 4. Frances Brooke’s The History of Lady Julia Mandeville 4.1. The Desiring Female: The Figure of Lady Anne Wilmot as an Unconventional Narrator........................................................................................................114 4.1.1. Female Transgression and its Consequences.............................114 4.1.2. Widening Conduct Literature: Courtship Novels and the Harlot’s Progress.....................................................................................119 4.1.3. The Search for a ‘True’ Female Account: Tensions between Representation and Experience.................................................124 4.1.4. Proper Female Behaviour: Privacy as a Psychological ‘Refuge’.................................................................................... 129 4.2. Struggling with Passion.........................................................................................................133 4.2.1. The Intense Power of Feeling................................................... 133 4.2.2. Representing the Passions.....................................................................................136 4.2.3. Rationalizing the Passions: The Need for Self-Regulation.......139 4.3. The Masquerade..................................................................................................141 4.3.1. Defining the Masquerade: A Multi-Faceted Genre.........................................................................................141 4.3.2. Masquerade and the Shaping of Identity: Psychoanalytical Perspectives...............................................................................146 4.3.3. The Mask as an Unsettling Symbol: Hindering Social Stability......................................................................................148 5. Elizabeth Griffith’s The Delicate Distress 5.1. Marriage and Adultery: Cultural and Literary Representations............................................................................................152 5.1.1. Marriage: An Unnarratable theme?........................................................................................155 5.1.2. Marital Life: The Impact of the Sexual Double Standard.....................................................................................157 5.1.3. Advice Literature: Towards an Idealised Marriage.....................................................................................164 5.1.4. Adultery: Linguistic and Semantic Connotations..............................................................................166 5.1.4.1. Narrating Adultery: The Destabilisation of the Family............................................................................167 5.2. Towards a Feminine Utopia: Women’s Education and the Movement away from the Image of the Temptress.....................................................................................................171 5.2.1. The Feminine as Spiritual: Gardens as Metaphysical Retreats......................................................................................175 5.2.2. The Idealisation of the Family: Women as Guarantors of Virtue.........................................................................................178 5.2.3. Negotiating between Subordination and Independence: Matriarchal and Egalitarian Narratives...................................................................................182 5.3. Constructing the Heroine: The Tensions between Feminine Disempowerment and Feminine Agency.........................................................................................................185 5.3.1. A Threat to the Family Unit: The Image of the Femme Fatale.........................................................................................187 6. Sophia Lee’s The Recess 6.1. History vs. Fiction: Which is more Influential?...................................................................................................196 6.1.1. Defining Historical Fiction: A Multifaceted Genre.........................................................................................197 6.1.2. Sophia Lee’s The Recess: A Historical Tale?..........................................................................................201 6.1.3. Multiple Female Voices: The Unreliability of the Narrator......................................................................................203 6.1.4. Retelling of History: Breaking the Barrier between History and Fiction........................................................................................205 6.2. Female Gothic..........................................................................................................213