A ROMANCE WORLD OF THEIR OWN GENERIC AND PATRIARCHAL BOUNDARIES UNSETTLED IN “EVELINA” AND “THE FEMALE QUIXOTE”

Year 2021, Volume: 61 Issue: 1, 147 - 166, 24.06.2021

Hakan Yılmaz

https://doi.org/10.33171/dtcfjournal.2021.61.1.6

Abstract

The continuity between the romance and the novel genres has been undermined since the
latter's emergence in the eighteenth century despite the conceptual confusion regarding
these genres at the time. Many critics de-contextualize the novel as if it came into being
merely as a reaction to and through a complete break with the former literary genres, and
hence fail to see its many connections to the romance in terms of structure and content.
Though we have today made more or less clear-cut distinctions between romance and
novel, the exible and interchangeable use of these terms for the better part of the
eighteenth century demonstrates that they overlap more than differ in their qualities.
Therefore, by bringing into the spotlight the romance elements and qualities prevalent in
the eighteenth-century novel, this paper aims at unearthing and exploring how certain
romance elements and generic instability of the novel genre open up a space and serve a
liberating function for Arabella and Evelina in the strictly patriarchal eighteenth-century
society in Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote (1752) and Frances Burney's Evelina
(1778).

Keywords

Frances Burney, Evelina, Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote, Romans, Türsel İstikrarsızlık

References

• Aydoğdu-Çelik, Merve. “Female Agency and Criticism of Marital Practices in Lady Mary Wroth’s The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania.” MOLESTO: Journal of Literary Studies 2.1 (2019): 35–59.
• Bartu, Cemre Mimoza. “Mavi Çoraplılar Topluluğu ve on Sekizinci Yüzyıl İngiliz Romanındaki Etkilerinin Frances Burney’nin Evelina Romanında İncelenmesi.” İngiliz Edebiyatında Toplumsal Cinsiyet. Ed. Huriye Reis and Aytül Özüm. Ankara: Hacettepe Üniversitesi, 2017. 99–122.
• Burney, Frances. Evelina or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Doody, Margaret Anne. “Introduction.” The Female Quixote, or the Adventures of Arabella. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. xi–xxxii.
• Epstein, Julia. “Marginality in Frances Burney’s Novels.” The Cambridge Companion to the Eighteenth-Century Novel. Ed. John Richetti. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 198–211.
• Frye, Northrop. The Secular Scripture: A Study of the Structures of Romance. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1976.
• Hayward, Andy. “Married Women’s Property Act 1882.” Women’s Legal Landmarks: Celebrating the History of Women and Law in the UK and Ireland. Ed. Erika Rackley and Rosemary Auchmuty. Oxford: Hart, 2019. 71–75.
• Hunter, J. Paul. “The Novel and Social/Cultural History.” The Cambridge Companion to the Eighteenth-Century Novel. Ed. John Richetti. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 9–40.
• Johnson, Samuel. “Novel.” A Dictionary of the English Language: A Digital Edition of the 1755 Classic by Samuel Johnson 1755. Ed. Brandi Besalke. Web. 10 Feb. 2021.
• Kettle, Arnold. “Realism and Romance.” The Realist Novel. Ed. Dennis Walder. London: Routledge, 1995. 211–218.
• Lennox, Charlotte. The Female Quixote, or the Adventures of Arabella. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
• McKeon, Michael. “Generic Transformation and Social Change: Rethinking the Rise of the Novel.” Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach. Ed. Michael McKeon. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. 382–399.
• ---. The Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
• Özüm, Aytül. “Charlotte Lennox’ın The Female Quixote or the Adventures of Arabella Başlıklı Eserinde Romans ve Roman Karakteri Olarak Arabella.” On Sekizinci Yüzyılda İngiliz Kadın Yazarlar. Ed. A. Deniz Bozer. Ankara: Hacettepe Üniversitesi, 2016. 133–155.
• Paluchowska-Messing, Anna. “‘The Darts to Wound with Endless Love!’ On Hannah Cowley’s Response to Frances Burney’s Evelina.” Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 54 (2019): 43–57.
• Reeve, Clara. The Progress of Romance, and the History of Charoba, Queen of Aegypt. New York: The Facsimile Text Society, 1930.
• Simons, Judy. “Fanny Burney: The Tactics of Subversion.” Living by the Pen: Early British Women Writers. Ed. Dale Spender. New York: Teachers College Press, 1992. 126–136.
• Skinner, John. An Introduction to Eighteenth-Century Fiction: Raising the Novel. New York: Palgrave, 2001.
• Spencer, Jane. The Rise of the Woman Novelist: From Aphra Behn to Jane Austen. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986.
• Spender, Dale. Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers before Jane Austen. London: Pandora Press, 1986.
• Thomson, Helen. “Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote: A Novel Interrogation.” Living by the Pen: Early British Women Writers. Ed. Dale Spender. New York: Teachers College Press, 1992. 113–125.
• Walpole, Horace. “Preface to the Second Edition.” The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story and The Mysterious Mother: A Tragedy. Ed. Frederick S. Frank. Ontario: Brodview Press, 2003. 65–70.
• Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957.