Writing Eighteenth‐Century Women's Literary History, 1986 to 2006

Abstract

Under the influence of feminist theory and criticism, the late 1980s saw a flowering of literary histories of eighteenth‐century women writers. This work was very influential in assuming the existence of a distinct women's literary history conditioned by an increasingly rigid gender ideology of the time, in focusing on the novel genre, and in creating appreciation for the more recognizably feminist writers of the early and latter portions of the ‘long eighteenth century’. Subsequent work questioned the dependence of these histories on the ‘separate spheres’ model of gender, on a limited group of genres associated with women and with the literary, and on notions of feminism congenial to the late‐twentieth‐century critic. More broadly, feminist generalizations of women's experience were challenged by the rise of class, race and sexuality studies, while the very enterprise of historiography was placed under suspicion by postmodernist criticism of master narratives and of claims to objective interpretation of evidence. In response, studies of eighteenth‐century women's writing began to attend to a broader range of genres and spheres of action within the larger field of print culture, as well as to produce more nuanced studies of individual writers and the conditions within which they wrote. However, general literary studies remained dependent on the models of the 1980s, while writers seemed reluctant to write new literary histories. Only recently are there indications of a return to large‐scale women's literary histories. This return revises the pioneering work of the 1980s by attending to new, detailed studies of numerous individual writers, expanding generic coverage, incorporating electronic resources, experimenting with inclusive studies of male and female writers, and reconsidering questions of literary value.

Teaching Eighteenth‐Century Women Writers

“…Aphra Behn and Frances Burney have volumes dedicated to their work, and essays on Lucy Hutchinson, Margaret Cavendish, Women Playwrights, Katherine Phillips, Eliza Haywood, Women’s poetry and many female novelists can be found in various volumes cited in the bibliography. Toni Bowers’ essay ‘Gender Studies and Eighteenth‐century British Literature’ (2007) and Betty A. Schellenberg’s‘Writing Eighteenth‐century Women’s Literary History, 1986–2006’ (2007) provide excellent bibliographies on further recent scholarship and would themselves make useful reading assignments for students. Additionally, I often use the following as recommended texts for students to purchase: Vivien Jones’ collection Women and Literature in Britain 1700–1800 which contains the cited essays by Brant and Grundy and many others; Amanda Vickery’s social history The Gentleman’s Daughter, a delightfully written investigation of letters and diaries of actual 18th century English gentry women; and Ruth Perry’s interdisciplinary study of the 18th century family Novel Relations: The Transformation of Kinship in English Literature and Culture 1748–1818 .…”

“…In the 20 years since I began teaching, the field has expanded greatly both in terms of scholarly attention and availability of classroom texts, though it lags behind Romantic and Renaissance women in the latter. As Toni Bowers and Betty Schellenberg demonstrate in recent LC articles, the very structure of literary history has shifted considerably to make room for and understand the contributions of women from the long 18th century, and the process is far from being over. Given the flux, this particular historical moment may be messy, but it is possible and, indeed, important to open up the space to discuss how we teach 18th century women.…”

Bluestocking Studies 2011–2017: The Transnational Turn

“…Susan Carlile, editor of Masters of the Marketplace: British Women Novelists of the 1750s , calls for greater attention to mid‐18th‐century women novelists, who challenged the “fathers of the novel” in displaying spirited, intelligent heroines interested in pushing the social envelope and asserted themselves as masters rather than mistresses of the new genre. Betty Schellenberg's concluding essay in that volume points out the importance of seeing bluestockings' impact on far‐reaching networks even as the women writers themselves traversed “the hybrid urban spaces within which citizens of the republic of letters crossed paths and facilitated one another's careers – or avoided and even attempted to thwart one another” (Carlile , 242). Professional networks enabled opportunities of transnational understanding for the armchair traveler as well as the wanderer, something that Felicity Nussbaum's recent work on Hester Thrale Piozzi has further elucidated (e.g.…”

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

“…My review of research builds on Betty A. Schellenberg's article “Writing Eighteenth‐Century Women's Literary History, 1986 to 2006”. For this reason, publications prior to 2005 are mentioned only when they prepare the way for later work.…”