Their Fathers' Daughters: Hannah More, Maria Edgeworth, and Patriarchal Complicity

by Elizabeth Kowaleski-Wallace

Overview

Current feminist theory has developed powerful explanations for some women writers' rebellion against patriarchy. But other women writers did not rebel; rather, they supported and celebrated patriarchy. Examining the lives and selected works of two late eighteenth-century writers, Hannah More and Maria Edgeworth, this book explores what it means for a woman writer to identify with her father and the patriarchal tradition he represents. Kowaleski-Wallace exposes the psychological, social, and historical factors that motivated such an identification, and reveals the consequences that result from being a "daddy's girl."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195345025
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/03/1991
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	366 KB

About the Author

Brandeis University

Table of Contents

1	Their Fathers' Daughters: An Introduction	3
2	Milton's Bogey Reconsidered	27
3	Hannah and Her Sister: Women and Evangelicalism	56
	An Introduction to Maria Edgeworth	95
4	Home Economics: Domestic Ideology in Belinda	109
5	Good Housekeeping: The Politics of Anglo-Irish Ascendancy	138
6	Monstrous Daughters: The Problem of Maternal Inheritance	173
7	Coda: Charlotte Bronte and Milton's Cook	198
	Notes	209
	Index	231

Editorial Reviews

"A courageous, wise, and witty book about the lives and writings of two father-identified women....The book's rejection of familial thinking manifests an exciting change in the object and aims of feminist criticism."—Eighteenth-Century Studies

"A valuable addition to women's studies collections."—Choice

"Kowaleski-Wallace has convincingly shown, however, that the sociopolitical agendas of both writers are deeply and pervasively involved with issues of gender. In the process, she has also established and original and productive frame for rethinking gender relations in their bearing on an era of profound social change."—Alan Richardson

"A useful text...Her thesis works well with the novels she has chosen to examine (selected ones by Charlotte Lennox, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Anne Radcliffe, Jane Austen, and Sir Walter Scott). She desires to tell the truth about desire, and she does so."—Tulsa Studies in Women's literature

"Kowaleski-Wallace's analysis of the class bias that informs More's patriarchal complicity is well argued."—South Atlantic Review

From the Publisher