Quixotic Legacy: The Female Quixote and the Professional Woman Writer

This essay argues that Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote or, The Adventures of Arabella (1752) served as a fulcrum in eighteenth-century literary history by providing a figuration of the female quixote for subsequent women novelists who were keen to court absorbed readers on the one hand while c...

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Main Author: Jodi L. Wyett
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Ghent University 2015-06-01
Series:Authorship
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.authorship.ugent.be/article/view/1108/1128
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spelling doaj-803897329b354d16b315967ee4f389282020-11-24T21:41:29ZengGhent UniversityAuthorship2034-46432034-46432015-06-0141Quixotic Legacy: The Female Quixote and the Professional Woman Writer Jodi L. Wyett0 Xavier University This essay argues that Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote or, The Adventures of Arabella (1752) served as a fulcrum in eighteenth-century literary history by providing a figuration of the female quixote for subsequent women novelists who were keen to court absorbed readers on the one hand while countering stereotypes about women's critical failings on the other. The figure of the female quixote proves to be a significant mark of literary professionalism by reifying the spectre of the professional writer’s need for absorbed readers and dramatizing the occasion by which the woman writer demonstrates her own authority, paradoxically allowing both woman novel reader and woman novel writer to lay claim to intellectual authority. Ultimately, the main character Arabella's fictional model potentially echoes more actual eighteenth-century women’s experiences than her adventures at first suggest: the female quixote emerges as less a social outcast or a freak than a figure for women’s commonality, especially their intellectual and ethical ambitions in a world inimical to their interests.http://www.authorship.ugent.be/article/view/1108/1128Charlotte Lennox; Female Authorship; professional authorhsip; quixote
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Jodi L. Wyett
spellingShingle Jodi L. Wyett
Quixotic Legacy: The Female Quixote and the Professional Woman Writer
Authorship
Charlotte Lennox; Female Authorship; professional authorhsip; quixote
author_facet Jodi L. Wyett
author_sort Jodi L. Wyett
title Quixotic Legacy: The Female Quixote and the Professional Woman Writer
title_short Quixotic Legacy: The Female Quixote and the Professional Woman Writer
title_full Quixotic Legacy: The Female Quixote and the Professional Woman Writer
title_fullStr Quixotic Legacy: The Female Quixote and the Professional Woman Writer
title_full_unstemmed Quixotic Legacy: The Female Quixote and the Professional Woman Writer
title_sort quixotic legacy: the female quixote and the professional woman writer
publisher Ghent University
series Authorship
issn 2034-4643
2034-4643
publishDate 2015-06-01
description This essay argues that Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote or, The Adventures of Arabella (1752) served as a fulcrum in eighteenth-century literary history by providing a figuration of the female quixote for subsequent women novelists who were keen to court absorbed readers on the one hand while countering stereotypes about women's critical failings on the other. The figure of the female quixote proves to be a significant mark of literary professionalism by reifying the spectre of the professional writer’s need for absorbed readers and dramatizing the occasion by which the woman writer demonstrates her own authority, paradoxically allowing both woman novel reader and woman novel writer to lay claim to intellectual authority. Ultimately, the main character Arabella's fictional model potentially echoes more actual eighteenth-century women’s experiences than her adventures at first suggest: the female quixote emerges as less a social outcast or a freak than a figure for women’s commonality, especially their intellectual and ethical ambitions in a world inimical to their interests.
topic Charlotte Lennox; Female Authorship; professional authorhsip; quixote
url http://www.authorship.ugent.be/article/view/1108/1128
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