Mothers of the Nation: Women's Political Writing in England, 1780–1830Indiana University Press, 22/05/2000 - 188 من الصفحات A survey of British women’s writings of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the revolutionary New Woman they promoted. British women writers were enormously influential in the creation of public opinion and political ideology during the years from 1780 to 1830. Anne Mellor demonstrates the many ways in which they attempted to shape British public policy and cultural behavior in the areas of religious and governmental reform, education, philanthropy, and patterns of consumption. She argues that the theoretical paradigm of the “doctrine of the separate spheres” may no longer be valid. According to this view, British society was divided into distinctly differentiated and gendered spheres of public versus private activities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Surveying all the genres of literature?drama, poetry, fiction, non-fiction prose, and literary criticism?Mellor shows how women writers promoted a new concept of the ideal woman as rationally educated, sexually self-disciplined, and above all, virtuous. This New Woman, these writers said, was better suited to govern the nation than were its current fiscally irresponsible, lecherous, and corruptible male rulers. Beginning with Hannah More, Mellor argues that women writers too often dismissed as conservative or retrogressive instead promoted a revolution in cultural mores or manners. She discusses writers as diverse as Elizabeth Inchbald, Hannah Cowley, and Joanna Baillie; as Charlotte Smith, Anna Barbauld, and Lucy Aikin; as Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Reeve, and Anna Seward; and concludes with extended analyses of Charlotte Smith’s Desmond and Jane Austen’s Persuasion. She thus documents women writers’ full participation in that very discursive public sphere which Habermas so famously restricted to men of property. Moreover, the new career of philanthropy defined by Hannah More provided a practical means by which women of all classes could actively construct a new British civil society, and thus become the mothers not only of individual households but of the nation as a whole. “Intellectual and social historians (and not just feminists) have long believed that the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Britain saw an increasing separation of the male (public) and female (domestic) realms, with the result that the public sphere theorized by Jurgen Habermas and others to have emerged in the Enlightenment almost entirely excluded women. With energy, wit, and admirable command of her sources, Mellor . . . author of distinguished books on Romanticism . . . demonstrates that just the opposite was true: in the years around 1800, women became the primary producers and consumers of writing in Britain and vitally participated in the discursive public sphere—many arguing in their different ways for what Hannah More (the most popular author of the period) called a moral revolution in the national manners and principles. . . . [A] splendid survey of women novelists, poets, critics, playwrights, and social theorists . . . this bracing and important work of revision deserves a place in serious academic libraries serving both undergraduates and advanced scholars.” —D. L. Patey, Choice |
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الصفحة 4
... claim authorship of at least one published and reviewed novel , and that by far the most prolific novelist of the period , as Mitzi Myers has ob- served , was the anonymous " A Lady . " After surveying both the number of editions of ...
... claim authorship of at least one published and reviewed novel , and that by far the most prolific novelist of the period , as Mitzi Myers has ob- served , was the anonymous " A Lady . " After surveying both the number of editions of ...
الصفحة 5
... claims of female orators or debaters were widely disseminated by 1785 is document- ed by Stevens's " head of the Female Moderator " ( figure 1 ) whose recorded speech I quote in full : This is the head [ takes the head ] of. 1. The ...
... claims of female orators or debaters were widely disseminated by 1785 is document- ed by Stevens's " head of the Female Moderator " ( figure 1 ) whose recorded speech I quote in full : This is the head [ takes the head ] of. 1. The ...
الصفحة 6
... claim that women's participation in the literary public sphere was not contested ; as we well know , the opposite was the case . Nu- merous conduct books and other forms of public discourse - from sermons to literary texts to public ...
... claim that women's participation in the literary public sphere was not contested ; as we well know , the opposite was the case . Nu- merous conduct books and other forms of public discourse - from sermons to literary texts to public ...
الصفحة 10
... claiming that they spoke on behalf of moral- ity and " right feeling " ( or true sensibility ) . Finally , we can turn to popular culture for further evidence of women's participation in both the discursive and the more broadly defined ...
... claiming that they spoke on behalf of moral- ity and " right feeling " ( or true sensibility ) . Finally , we can turn to popular culture for further evidence of women's participation in both the discursive and the more broadly defined ...
الصفحة 14
... claims concerning the historical impact of More's career . ( 1 ) Her writings contrib- uted to the prevention of a French - style , violent revolution in England . ( 2 ) They did so by helping to reform , rather than subvert , the ...
... claims concerning the historical impact of More's career . ( 1 ) Her writings contrib- uted to the prevention of a French - style , violent revolution in England . ( 2 ) They did so by helping to reform , rather than subvert , the ...
المحتوى
1 | |
13 | |
2 Theater as the School of Virtue | 39 |
3 Womens Political Poetry | 69 |
4 Literary Criticism Cultural Authority and the Rise of the Novel | 85 |
5 The Politics of Fiction | 103 |
Postscript | 142 |
Notes | 147 |
Works Cited | 151 |
Index | 165 |
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Aikin Amelia Opie ancien régime Anna Barbauld Anne Elliot Anne's argued argument aristocratic Baillie's Basil beauty benevolent Britain Britannia British nation Burke Burke's called Cambridge character Charlotte Smith Cheap Repository Tracts Christian claim Coelebs comedy concept condemned Cowley's culture daughter defined Desmond discourse discursive public sphere domestic Doricourt drama edited eighteenth century Elizabeth Inchbald endorsed England English Evangelical father feeling female poet feminist fiction France French Revolution gender genre Geraldine Habermas Hannah Cowley Hannah More's historical human husband ideology insists Jane Austen Joanna Baillie Kellynch Hall Lady Letitia liberty literary critics London Lucy Aikin male marriage marry Mary Wollstonecraft middle-class moral mother nature novel novelists passion patriarchal Persuasion play poem poetry political preface reform role Romantic Romantic era sensibility sexual slave trade slavery social society theater tion University Press Verney Victoria virtue Wentworth wife William woman women critics women writers writing