Female writers gained popularity in the 18th century, with the rise of the novel. Why, given the for

1
Female writers gained popularity in the 18th
century, with the rise of the novel.Why, given
the former paradigm set forth (male as author,
female as text), did females gain authority via
the novel?
2
Novel versus Romance

• Clara Reeve (1785) The romance is an heroic
  fable, which treats of fabulous persons and
  things.The Novel is a picture of real life and
  manners, and of the times in which it is written.
  The Romance, in lofty and elevated language,
  describes what never happened nor is likely to
  happen.The Novel gives a familiar relation of
  such things, as pass every day before our eyes,
  such as may happen to our friend, or to
  ourselves . . . representining every scene, in
  no easy and natural a manner, and . . . making
  them appear so probable, as to deceive us into a
  persuasion . . . that all is real.
• Novel Realism
• RomanceFantasy
• Mikhail Bakhtin, in his essay Epic and the
  Novel, likens the novel and epic romance to
• Novel zone of familiar contact (everyday,
  domestic life)
• Epic (or romance) distanced plane
  (patriarchal social structure)

3
Rise of the Novel

• Ian Watt, Rise of the Novel (1957)
• Advent of the novel coincided with the rise of
  the working class.
• Examples of early novels Samuel Richardson,
  Pamela Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, Moll
  Flanders Henry Fielding, Tom Jones
• Where are the female authors?

4
Nancy Armstrong, The Rise of Feminine Authority
in the NovelDomestic fiction . . . provided
a way of talking about conflict and
contradictions within the socioeconomic sphere
while remaining remote from that
world.Domestic fiction served as an allegory
for political (class-based) commentary.Samuel
Richardsons Pamela (1740) Pamela is a servant
who is tormented by her master, who later goes
through a moral conversion and agrees to marry
her. Thus, Pamela is elevated in class. (novel as
possible social commentary)Jane Austens Pride
and Prejudice (1813) Five daughters go on a
matchmaking spree to in order to gain economic
power and save the family from poverty. Again,
the domestic has political implications. Marriage
works to reconcile the class-based/political
conflict.(Even the character Elizabeth, who is
reluctant, marries. The patriarchal dominance,
inherent to nineteenth-century unions, is
maintained.)Females still lack power as a
characters. Male-female power structure remains
status quo.
5
Female as Moral Authority

• Female private/domestic
• Male public
• Female moral authority
• There was a prevailing belief that domestic
  life and moral sensibility were the females
  provenanceArmstrong.

6
Why, given the former paradigm set forth (male as
author, female as text), did females gain
authority via the novel?

• Change in subject matter from the public sphere
  to the private sphere (possibly due to political
  and class-based reasons).
• Domestic knowledge/moral expertise provided
  female writers with some authority.
• Jane Eyre title page

7
Margaret Oliphant (1855)

• Ten years ago we professed an orthodox system of
  novel-making. Our lovers were humble and devoted,
  . . . when suddenly, without warning, Jane Eyre
  stole upon the scene.

8

• Nancy Armstrong
• Characterizing 19th-century novels as
  commentaries on social mobility
• They all enact a fantasy of upward mobility in
  which a protagonist of inferior status enters the
  elite classes. In this respect, they demonstrate
  a common ancestry of eighteenth- and
  nineteenth-century fiction, but . . . those of
  the Brontës modify the political fantasy in a
  significant way. In contrast with Austens
  Elizabeth Bennet, for instance, neither Jane Eyre
  nor Heathcliff can penetrate the old squirearchy
  landowners/gentry without dismantling it.
• Jane Eyre is explicitly political
• Domestic fiction is no longer just an allegory