|
Showing 1 - 6 of
6 matches in All Departments
The querelle des femmes was a debate over the condition of women in
society lasting four centuries and characteristically involved
charges against female vice, folly, corruption, incontinence and
lasciviousness, countered by pro-women defences and lists of
exemplary women. The texts in these two volumes range from
broadside parliamentary petitions to verse satire, from sermons to
philosophical essays, from political diatribes to marital advice.
The defences all respond to attacks on women, and although none
argues for women's citizenship or social equality, many claim an
original or spiritual equality, and blame custom and male
corruption for female subjection. The volumes are arranged into
five sections covering Politics, Preaching and Silence, Sexuality,
Marriage and Two Contrapuntal Defences.
The querelle des femmes was a debate over the condition of women in
society lasting four centuries and characteristically involved
charges against female vice, folly, corruption, incontinence and
lasciviousness, countered by pro-women defences and lists of
exemplary women. The texts in these two volumes range from
broadside parliamentary petitions to verse satire, from sermons to
philosophical essays, from political diatribes to marital advice.
The defences all respond to attacks on women, and although none
argues for women's citizenship or social equality, many claim an
original or spiritual equality, and blame custom and male
corruption for female subjection. The volumes are arranged into
five sections covering Politics, Preaching and Silence, Sexuality,
Marriage and Two Contrapuntal Defences.
During the eighteenth century, British critics applied terms of
gender to literature according to the belief that masculine values
represented the best literature and feminine terms signified less
important works or authors. Laura Runge contends however that the
meaning of gendered terms like 'manly' or 'effeminate' changes over
time, and that the language of eighteenth-century criticism cannot
be fully understood without careful analysis of the gendered
language of the era. She examines conventions in various fields of
critical language - Dryden's prose, the early novel, criticism by
women, and the developing aesthetic - to show how gendered
epistemology shaped critical 'truths'. Her exploration of critical
commonplaces, such as regarding the heroic and the sublime as
masculine modes and the novel as a feminine genre, addresses issues
central to eighteenth-century studies.
Written by a combination of established scholars and new critics in
the field, the essays collected in The Circuit of Apollo attest to
the vital practice of commemorating women's artistic and personal
relationships. In doing so, they illuminate the complexity of
female friendships and honor as well as the robust creativity and
intellectual work contributed by women to culture in the long
eighteenth century. Women's tributes to each other sometimes took
the form of critical engagement or competition, but they always
exposed the feminocentric networks of artistic, social, and
material exchange women created and maintained both in and outside
of London. This volume advocates for a new perspective for
researching and teaching early modern women that is grounded in
admiration.
During the eighteenth century, British critics applied terms of
gender to literature according to the belief that masculine values
represented the best literature and feminine terms signified less
important works or authors. Laura Runge contends however that the
meaning of gendered terms like 'manly' or 'effeminate' changes over
time, and that the language of eighteenth-century criticism cannot
be fully understood without careful analysis of the gendered
language of the era. She examines conventions in various fields of
critical language - Dryden's prose, the early novel, criticism by
women, and the developing aesthetic - to show how gendered
epistemology shaped critical 'truths'. Her exploration of critical
commonplaces, such as regarding the heroic and the sublime as
masculine modes and the novel as a feminine genre, addresses issues
central to eighteenth-century studies.
|
|