A Genealogy of the Gentleman Women Writers and Masculinity in the Eighteenth Century - EARLY MODERN FEMINISMS
Paperback (01 Apr 2024)
Save $4.19
RRP $56.93- $52.74
Includes delivery to the United States
10+ copies available online - Usually dispatched within two working days
Other formats/editions
Check stock
A Genealogy of the Gentleman argues that eighteenth-century women writers made key interventions in modern ideals of masculinity and authorship through their narrative constructions of the gentleman. It challenges two latent critical assumptions: first, that the gentleman's masculinity is normative, private, and therefore oppositional to concepts of performance; and second, that women writers, from their disadvantaged position within a patriarchal society, had no real means of influencing dominant structures of masculinity. By placing writers such as Mary Davys, Eliza Haywood, Charlotte Lennox, Elizabeth Inchbald, and Mary Robinson in dialogue with canonical representatives of the gentleman author-Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, David Hume, Samuel Johnson, and Samuel Richardson-Mary Beth Harris shows how these women carved out a space for their literary authority not by overtly opposing their male critics and society's patriarchal structure, but by rewriting the persona of the gentleman as a figure whose very desirability and appeal were dependent on women's influence. Ultimately, this project considers the import of these women writers' legacy, both progressive and conservative, on hegemonic standards of masculinity that persist to this day.
Book information
ISBN: | 9781644533284 |
Publisher: | University of Delaware Press |
Imprint: | University of Delaware Press |
Pub date: | 01 Apr 2024 |
DEWEY: | 820.935211 |
DEWEY edition: | 23/eng/20231220 |
Language: | English |
Number of pages: | cm |
Weight: | 367g |
Height: | 235mm |
Width: | 156mm |
Spine width: | 18mm |