From Feminist to Integrationist Literary History: 18th Century Studies 2005–2013

Abstract

Feminist research has explored the specific qualities of female works and the intertextual relations between them. By now, the time has come to transcend the model of 'a literature of their own' and to inquire into the inf luences, interconnections and processes of cooperation between men and women. Ideally, future literary histories would trace patterns of heterosocial interaction. My essay shows how recent scholarship has been working towards this aim. Monographs on individual women writers favour descriptive and interpretative categories with masculine connotations, thus opening up possibilities of relating female to male literary production. Studies of groups of women similarly foreground a collective interest in 'male' topics (such as politics, revolution, reason or history) and read the works as feminine-inf lected discussions of subjects of general interest. Case studies of male and female literary cooperation supply samples for the new kind of historiography by exploring the dynamics of transgender creative processes. Most importantly, scholars are beginning to discern communities of male and female writers and heterosocial intertextual lineages, thereby suggesting synchronic and diachronic patterns for integrationist historiography.In or about 2000, female character changed. No longer was gender the dominant concept for understanding women's lives and works. Gender binaries dissolved, together with the opposition of a male public and a female private sphere. The borderline between male and female literature began to fade as well. With regard to 18th-century studies, the general doubt concerning the validity of exclusively gender-determined accounts was reinforced by the conjecture that, at least as far as the first 50 or 60 years of the century are concerned, the supposed primacy of gender duality might be the result of an anachronistic projection of the later 'two-sex model' back onto an earlier age. Recent studies on women writers prefer to work with traditionally masculine descriptive and interpretative categories, which in the process gradually lose their gender-specific character. Scholars discover the importance of female 'agency'. They realize that women competed with men for public recognition and financial gain in the literary marketplace, discussed 'male' topics such as politics, economics, philosophy, religion and history, and worked successfully in genres other than the 'feminine' novel. Their literary activities were closely connected with those of their male colleagues. The integrationist move of women's studies is made explicit in books and articles, which explore the similarities and interrelations between male and female authors. These open up to visions of heterosocial writing communities. Taken together, the studies lay the ground work for a future integrationist literary historiography.My review of research builds on Betty A. Schellenberg's 2007 article "Writing EighteenthCentury Women's Literary History, 1986 to 2006". For this reason, publications prior to 2005 are mentioned only wh...

Recent scholarship on eighteenth‐century women's poetry

“…Throughout the twenty‐first century, the field has moved towards intersectional and integrationist methodologies, pursuing a more nuanced feminist historicism that accounts for differences as well as similarities between women writers and allows us to place them in conversation with their male counterparts. Rather than signalling the death‐knell of the discipline, an integrationist approach ‘encourages and even necessitates additional research’ into women's writing (Schabert, 2014, p. 674), and allows feminist scholars to remain attuned to the gendered patterns that often shaped women's literary production and reception (Looser, 2009, p. 224).…”

Bluestocking Studies 2011–2017: The Transnational Turn

“…The networks linking bluestockings emerge as the book progresses, including via the thorough notes, bibliography, and index. A number of critics have suggested that the category “women's writing” is no longer necessary – that it is time for the integration of female and male authors in the same literary history, which is certainly a desirable long‐term goal (Schabert ; see also Labbe ). However, Green integrates the influence of men's writing (even beyond bluestocking networks) without sacrificing the cohesive nature of women's productions; she shows persuasively that the recovery project is incomplete and that there is still much women's authorship to take into account on its own terms.…”