History, gender & eighteenth-century literature

Beth Fowkes Tobin

At once feminist and historical, the essays in History, Gender, and Eighteenth-Century Literature draw on culture, history, and gender as categories of analysis to explore British literature. From a variety of critical angles, the contributors to this volume contend that a comprehensive understanding of the circumstances and conditions of women's and men's lives is vital to the task of literary criticism. The texts under consideration range from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries, from popular and subliterary genres, such as conduct books and agricultural manuals, to works by such canonical writers as Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Henry Fielding, Frances Burney, and Jane Austen. Providing models that will encourage feminists to turn to history and culture in their analyses of literary texts, these essays explore the cultural and historical specificity of ideas...

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