Nineteenth-century British fiction is often dismissed as necrophillic or obsessed with death. While the label of necrophilia is an apt description of the fetishistic representations of dead women prevalent at the end of the century, it is too narrow to fit literature produced earlier in the century. This is not to say that abnormal attitudes toward death are only a feature of the late nineteenth century. In fact, pathological attitudes toward death abound in the literature, but the relationship between the deceased and the survivor is not always sexual in nature. Rather, there is a clear shift in attitudes, from the chaste death fantasy, or attraction to the idea of death, prevalent in Gothic works, to the destructive, stagnant mourning visible in mid-century texts, and culminating in the perverse sexualization of dead women at the turn of the century. This literary shift is most likely attributable to the concurrent changes in attitudes toward sex and death. As sex became more acceptable, more public, via the channels of scientific discourse, death became a less acceptable idea. This “denial of death” is a direct reaction to the religious uncertainties brought about by industrialization. As scientists and industrialists uncovered increasing evidence against a literal interpretation of the Bible, more people began to doubt the nature of God and the existence of an afterlife. If there was no God, then there was no heaven, which raised questions about what happened to the soul after death. With the certainty of an afterlife gone, death became mysterious, something to fear, and the passing of loved ones was doubly-mourned as their fate was now uncertain.

This dissertation identifies the character type of the "improperly educated" woman, who is both rationally educated and passionately outspoken, and examines the delineation of this recurring figure, in relation to the female education continuum, within the evolving discourse on female learning during the period of 1790-1801. British women writers, who opposed the deficient education offered to females, contributed their voices to collectively challenging the notion that education deprived the female sex of their femininity. Consequently, women novelists exploited the "improperly educated" female character as a means to explore alternatives to the existing curriculum, specifically rational and classical knowledge and to consider the negative effects of restrictive gender identities on female education. I employ feminist literary history and criticism to evaluate the participation of Elizabeth Inchbald, Mary Hays, and Maria Edgeworth in this continuing educational debate through their advocation for restructuring of the educational system and their effective use of versions of the "improperly educated" woman to portray women as intellectually capable. Challenging the conception of "feminine" as a natural state, Inchbald, Hays, and Edgeworth used fictional narratives to show the difficulties of strict adherence to proper femininity and to portray the irony of an education that does not enlighten but rather restricts and censors. Inchbald's A Simple Story, Hays' Memoirs of Emma Courtney, and Edgeworth's Belinda respectively demonstrate the important role played by this character type in regards to eighteenth and early nineteenth-century women writers' efforts to promote improvements in female instruction, encourage female autonomy, and demonstrate women's capabilities for self-improvement. Undeterred by traditional custom, women novelists renewed literary efforts to display similarities between women of diverse social classes and levels of learning, thus exposing the adverse consequences of the conventionally transitory and inferior education, which the majority of the female sex experienced. This character makes a significant impact in promoting improvement in the educational system and revising the definition of proper feminine behavior within British society.

by Wong Man-ki. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 157-163). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / 論文提要 --- p.iii / Acknowledgements --- p.v / "Introduction ""Intertextuality"": Definitions and Issues" --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter1 --- Intertextuality in the Eighteenth-Century Novels: Samuel Johnson's Rasselas and Ellis Cornelia Knight's Dinarbas --- p.34 / Chapter Chapter2 --- Postmodern Intertextuality (I): The Subversive Rewriting Project in Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber --- p.61 / Chapter Chapter3 --- Postmodern Intertextuality (II): Toward a Broader Scope ´ؤ Multiple Art Forms in Marina Warner's The Mermaids in the Basement and Paula Rego's Nursery Rhymes --- p.100 / Selected Bibliography --- p.157

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This dissertation examines the role of "acceptable" feminine violence in Restoration and eighteenth-century drama and fiction. Scenes such as Lady Davers's physical assault on Pamela in Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) have understandably troubled recent scholars of gender and literature. But critics, for the most part, have been more inclined to discuss women as victims of violence than as agents of violence. I argue that women in the Restoration and eighteenth century often used violence in order to maintain social boundaries, particularly sexual and economic ones, and that writers of the period drew upon this tradition of acceptable feminine violence in order to create the figure of the violent woman as a necessary agent of social control. One such figure is Violenta, the heroine of Delarivier Manley's novella The Wife's Resentment (1720), who murders and dismembers her bigamous husband. At her trial, Violenta is condemned to death "notwithstanding the Pity of the People" and "the Intercession of the Ladies," who believe that although the "unexampled Cruelty [Violenta] committed afterwards on the dead Body" was excessive, the murder itself is not inexcusable given her husband's bigamy. My research draws upon diverse archival materials, such as conduct manuals, criminal biographies, and legal records, in order to provide a contextual grounding for the interpretation of literary works by women. Moving between contemporary accounts of feminine violence and discussions of pertinent literary works by Eliza Haywood, Susanna Centlivre, Delarivier Manley, Aphra Behn, Mary Pix, and Jane Wiseman, the dissertation examines issues of interpersonal violence and communal violence committed by women.

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In this dissertation, I examine antagonistic relationships between women writers in the first half of the eighteenth century, focusing on the works of Delarivier Manley, Martha Fowke Sansom, Eliza Haywood, and Laetitia Pilkington. Professional rivalry among women writers represents an under-studied but vital element of the history of print culture in the early eighteenth century. I argue that the shared burden of negotiating the complicated literary marketplace did not, as critics have at times suggested, inspire women who wrote for print publication to feel for one another a sisterly benevolence. Rather, fine gradations in social class, questions of genre status and individual talent, and -- perhaps most importantly -- clashing literary ambitions spurred early eighteenth-century women writers into vicious rivalries recorded in print and driven by print culture. Women documented their literary battles in poems, in prefaces, and in autobiographical texts replete with self-justification and with attacks on former friends or disappointing patronesses. This dissertation recognizes rivalry as a crucial mode of interaction between eighteenth-century literary women and analyzes the ways in which these professional women writers labored to defend themselves not just against patriarchal pressures but against one another. In doing so, it contributes to the construction of a more complete literary history of the first half of the eighteenth century by exploring how early eighteenth-century women writers imagined their own professional lives, how they imagined the professional lives of other women, and how they therefore believed themselves influenced (or claimed themselves influenced) by the support or detraction of other women. The first two chapters of this dissertation focus on Delarivier Manley's career and writings, while the second two address the entangled writing lives of Eliza Haywood and Martha Fowke Sansom. The concluding chapter briefly examines Laetitia Pilkington's Memoirs. I investigate the way these women employed the practice of life-writing as a means of self-construction, self-promotion, and public appeal. / text

Orientador: Suzi Frankl Sperber / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-19T21:56:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Viegas_ShellidaFernandadaCollina_D.pdf: 120671766 bytes, checksum: 6769e677622ca23add669406b7687de0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / Resumo: Como é possível o mesmo autor, na mesma época, escrever dois romances com a mesma temática e dar-lhes tratamento tão distinto? Essa é a pergunta que intriga os leitores de Defoe ao ler duas das suas principais obras literárias, Moll Flanders (1722) e Roxana (1724), e é também a pergunta que norteou esta pesquisa. Para responder a isso, estudamos a história da leitura, o surgimento e a popularização do romance, a história dos direitos autorais e a influência do público leitor na produção de romances. Isso porque ambas as obras de Defoe tiveram várias edições ao longo do séc. XVIII que se diferenciavam das primeiras tiragens. Visando estabelecer algumas hipóteses para explicar os motivos que levaram os editores a alterar os finais das obras, foram analisadas, nesses romances, as figuras da prostituta, amante, esposa e mãe e a condição da mulher na Inglaterra pré-Revolução Industrial, sem perder de vista a questão da edição e da recepção / Abstract: To what extent is it possible that an author over the same decade had written two novels about the same central theme, but from and with different perspectives? The readers of Daniel Defoe are right to raise this issue after reading Moll Flanders (1722) and Roxana (1724). This research sets about answering such questions. To this end, I used Defoe's novels to take a close look at the history of reading, the creation and popularity of the novel, copyright implications and the influence of the reader in the production of novels. After all, both novels underwent a series of different editions throughout the eighteenth century. To formulate a working hypothesis to outline the reasons that allowed such changes in editions, I analyzed the figures of the prostitute, lover, wife and mother and the condition of women in pre-Industrial Revolution England in both novels / Doutorado / Literatura Geral e Comparada / Doutor em Teoria e História Literária

This dissertation examines ways in which women constructed and criticized matrimony both before and after their own marriages. Social historians have argued for the rise of companionacy in the eighteenth century without paying attention to women's accounts of the fears and uncertainties surrounding the prospect of marriage. I argue that having more latitude to choose a husband did not diminish the enormous impact that the choice would have on the rest of a woman's life; if anything, choice might increase that impact. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Hester Mulso Chapone, Mary Delany, and Eliza Haywood recorded their anxieties about and their criticisms of marriage in public and private writings from the early years of the century into the 1750s. They often elide their own complex backgrounds in favor of generalized policy statements on what constitutes a good marriage. These women promote an ideal of marriage based on respect and similarity of character, suggesting that friendship is more honest, and durable than romantic love. This definition of ideal marriage enables these women to argue for more egalitarian marital relationships without overtly calling for a change in the wife's traditional role. The advancement of this ideal of companionacy gave women a means of promoting gender equality in marriage at a time when they considered marriage risky but socially and economically necessary.