Reviewing a collection of women’s verse in 1798, Ralph Griffiths, the author of a famous literary magazine, celebrated the 18th century as “the Age of ingenious and learned Ladies; who have excelled so much in the more elegant branches of literature, that we need not to hesitate in concluding that the long agitated dispute between the two sexes is at length determined; and that it is no longer a question, whether woman is or is not inferior to man in natural ability, or less capable of excelling in mental accomplishments” (Lonsdale 1989: xxi). From a present-day perspective on literary history, this assertion seems hopelessly naïve. For the most part, the women poets of the 18th century have been relegated to the margins of canon – if they are remembered at all.
In this B. A. seminar, we will explore together why this might be the case. In doing so, we will not only look at poems produced by writers such as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Anne Finch, and Anna Laetitia Barbauld but also at the historical context(s) and conditions of text production (and specifically women's text production) in the public and private spheres of 18th-century Britain. Why is it that we remember Alexander Pope or Robert Burns for their literary genius, but not Joanna Baillie or Frances Greville? What is considered a literary ‘classic’, a must-read, a canonical text, and why? And what qualities even make a poem a poem? In this regard, we will think about ideas of canonicity and canon formation; we will look into how notions of gender / sex, politics, and systemic oppression enter into considerations about the ‘worth’ and afterlife of a text and how they shaped women’s lyrical writing along with literary genre and poetic form in the 1700s and beyond.
- Dozent/in: Nadine Schmidt