Empowering the Feminine : The Narratives of Mary Robinson, Jane West, and Amelia Opie, 1796-1812

Ty examines three late 18th century female authors coming from different social backgrounds but all grappling with a desire for female empowerment to show how supposed female weaknesses were portrayed as potentially active forces for social change.

Mary Robinson, a fantastic beauty and popular actress, and once lover of the Prince of Wales, received the epithet 'the English Sappho' for her lyric verse. Amelia Opie, a member of the fashionable literary society and later a Quaker, included amongst her friends Sydney Smith, Byron, and Scott, and reputedly refused Godwin's marriage proposal out of admiration for Mary Wollstonecraft. Jane West, who tended her household and dairy while writing prolifically to support her children, was in direct opposition to the radically feminist ideas preceding her. These authors, each from different ideological and social backgrounds, all grappled with a desire for empowerment. Writing in an atmosphere hardened towards reform in response to the French revolution's upheavals, these women focus their narratives on typically feminine attitudes - docility, maternal feeling, heightened sensibility (that key word of the period). Their focus invested these attitudes with new meaning, making supposed female weaknesses potentially active forces for social change.

Eleanor Ty's convincing argument, arrived at through close readings of ten key texts, is an important addition to the recent spate of publications which bring to the fore neglected women authors whose fascinating lives and works greatly enrich our understanding of the late eighteenth century and British Romanticism.

Mary Robinson, a fantastic beauty and popular actress, and once lover of the Prince of Wales, received the epithet 'the English Sappho' for her lyric verse. Amelia Opie, a member of the fashionable literary society and later a Quaker, included amongst her friends Sydney Smith, Byron, and Scott, and reputedly refused Godwin's marriage proposal out of admiration for Mary Wollstonecraft. Jane West, who tended her household and dairy while writing prolifically to support her children, was in direct opposition to the radically feminist ideas preceding her. These authors, each from different ideological and social backgrounds, all grappled with a desire for empowerment. Writing in an atmosphere hardened towards reform in response to the French revolution's upheavals, these women focus their narratives on typically feminine attitudes - docility, maternal feeling, heightened sensibility (that key word of the period). Their focus invested these attitudes with new meaning, making supposed female weaknesses potentially active forces for social change. Eleanor Ty's convincing argument, arrived at through close readings of ten key texts, is an important addition to the recent spate of publications which bring to the fore neglected women authors whose fascinating lives and works greatly enrich our understanding of the late eighteenth century and British Romanticism "Mary Robinson, fantastic beauty, popular actress, and once lover of the Prince of Wales, received the epithet 'the English Sappho' for her lyric verse. Amelia Opie, a member of the fashionable literary society and later a Quaker, included among her friends Sydney Smith, Byron, and Scott, and reputedly refused Godwin's marriage proposal out of admiration for Mary Wollstonecraft. Jane West, who tended her household and dairy while writing prolifically to support her children, was in direct opposition to the radically feminist ideas preceding her. These authors, each from different ideological and social backgrounds, all grappled with a desire for empowerment. Writing in an atmosphere hardened towards reform in response to the French revolution's upheavals, these women focus their narratives on typically feminine attributes - docility, maternal feeling, heightened sensibility (that key word of the period). That focus invests these attributes with new meaning, making supposed female weaknesses potentially active forces for social change."--Résumé de l'éditeur Contents 5 Preface 7 Acknowledgments 11 Introduction 13 Part I: Mary Robinson (1758-1800) 35 1. Engendering a Female Subject: Mary Robinson's (Re)Presentations of the Self 35 2. Questioning Nature's Mould: Gender Displacement in Robinson's Walsingham 54 3. Fathers as Monsters of Deceit: Robinson's Domestic Criticism in The False Friend 69 4. Recasting Exquisite Sensibility: Robinson's The Natural Daughter 84 Part II: Jane West (1758-1852) 99 5. Abjection and the Necessity of the Other: West's Feminine Ideals in A Gossip's Story 99 6. Politicizing the Domestic: The Mother's Seduction in West's A Tale of the Times 113 7. Displaying Hysterical Bodies: Philosophists in West's The Infidel Father 128 Part III: Amelia Opie (1769-1853) 145 8. Re-scripting the Tale of the Fallen Woman: Opie's The Father and Daughter 145 9. The Curtain between the Heart and Maternal Affection: Theory and the Mother and Daughter in Opie's Adeline Mowbray 157 10. Not a Simple Moral Tale: Maternal Anxieties and Female Desire in Opie's Temper 173 Afterword 190 Notes 197 Index 231 "Mary Robinson, fantastic beauty, popular actress, and once lover of the Prince of Wales, received the epithet 'the English Sappho' for her lyric verse. Amelia Opie, a member of the fashionable literary society and later a Quaker, included among her friends Sydney Smith, Byron, and Scott, and reputedly refused Godwin's marriage proposal out of admiration for Mary Wollstonecraft. Jane West, who tended her household and dairy while writing prolifically to support her children, was in direct opposition to the radically feminist ideas preceding her. These authors, each from different ideological and social backgrounds, all grappled with a desire for empowerment. Writing in an atmosphere hardened towards reform in response to the French revolution's upheavals, these women focus their narratives on typically feminine attributes - docility, maternal feeling, heightened sensibility (that key word of the period). That focus invests these attributes with new meaning, making supposed female weaknesses potentially active forces for social change."--Jacket