Women
Writing History:
The Way Romantic Era Female Writers Strove to Achieve
Agency and Tell their own Stories
The problem women writers of the
Romantic Era (and many other eras) faced is quintessentially summed up by the
character of Anne Elliot in Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion: “Men have had every advantage of us in telling their
own story…the pen has been in their hands” (Austen, 243). In fact, it wasn’t
just in “telling their story” that men had the advantage; it was in nearly
every other way as well. During the height of the Romantic era, 1780-1830, it
was believed that “women were innately inferior to men in both rational
capacity and ethic development, although they possessed souls and could be
trained to be virtuous” (Mellor and Matlak, 31). The main responsibility that
women had was to have children and keep the household. This wasn’t limited to
just ideological thought either, there was an actual legal principle called “coverture,”
which meant that “their bodies and their possessions, inherited or earned, as
well as their children, belonged by law to the fathers or husbands” (31). Additionally,
there was the idea of “spheres” into which the man and woman belonged described
by John Ruskin in his work Sesame and
Lilies, which although was published in 1865, still sums up the idea
nicely: “The man, in his rough work in the open world, must encounter all peril
and trial…often he must be wounded, or subdued, often misled; and always
hardened. But he guards the woman from all this; within his house…as ruled by
her…need enter no danger, no temptation, no cause of error or offense” (Ruskin,
1520).Basically, the “private sphere” belonging to the woman, encompassing all
things domestic and within the home, and the “public sphere” belonging to the man, encompassing everything
else.
While this limited perspective of
what women were capable of wouldn’t change for quite some time, a great amount
of social unrest – caused by both the Enlightenment and the French Revolution- during
this time allowed, really for the first time on a wide scale, for women to have
the opportunity to speak their minds in a public forum. The Enlightenment was a
cultural movement of intellectualism that spread across Europe and America
during the early 18th century. It promoted scientific advancement,
open intellectual discourse, and often opposed most religious beliefs. It was
because of this that Romanticism emerged—in direct opposition to these ideals.
Romantics “attacked the Enlightenment because it blocked the free play of the
emotions and creativity. Imagination, sensitivity, feelings, spontaneity
and freedom were stifled -- choked to death. For the Romantic, the result was
nothing less than the demotion of the individual” (Kreis, 1). In addition to
providing inspiration for material, the Enlightenment also helped to open the
channels for communication. Common people who never would have expressed their
opinions before now had the opportunity to speak out. This gave women the
chance to join in on the international “conversation.”
Additionally,
and perhaps the event(s) which had the most influence on the Romantics was the
French Revolution. Also getting its roots for upheaval from the Enlightenment,
the French Revolution, beginning as early as 1789 and lasting until about 1799,
was a period of radical social and political shift, including huge rioting,
mass decapitations, including the king and queen, the Reign of Terror, and an
eventual overthrow of all formal types of government, which ended, oddly enough,
with the instillation of a dictator. Obviously, the impact of such a huge
uprising had impact on more than just France. Here is a link to coverage of the Revolution as it was happening by the
British Newspaper, The London Times.
Other countries around Europe were concerned and rightfully so! If the French
people could do it, why couldn’t the British or German? This caused an outburst
of opinions from all sides, people for the revolution, and people against it,
aristocrats, commoners, and women alike all had their say. Interestingly enough,
women had a large impact on the revolution itself, both in France and overseas.
Women participated in many of the Bread Riots in France, sparked by the fact
that the price of bread was unaffordable and they couldn’t feed their families.
Additionally, as pictured below, it was women who actually marched to
Versailles that fateful day and brought the king back to the Capital, Paris, in
order to stand trial.
Through these two major events,
women were given the opportunity to make their voice heard more than ever
before, and they jumped at the opportunity to finally tell their side of the
story. Despite writing in different styles about different topics with
different outcomes, there was a common thread throughout all of the works of
women writers in the Romantic Era: In their own unique ways, they all strove to
better the state of women and achieve more agency as a whole by expressing their
own voice and calling attention to (and often reversing) typical gender roles.
One such woman was Hannah More.
Hannah More was an English religious writer and well-known philanthropist. She
always had a passion for educating the less fortunate, and so very early in her
life, she opened a school for girls with her five sisters. Like most schools
for girls of the day, they taught “accomplishments,” such as dancing, music,
drawing, and French, but in a very controversial move for their time, also
taught literature, mathematics, and history. It was here at this school that
More began to develop her writing skills, by “providing plays suitable for
respectable Christian schoolgirls to produce” (Mellor and Matlak, 200). What she is arguably most well-known for,
however, are her Cheap Repository Tracts.
Hoping to reach out to the poor and illiterate masses, More published a set of
over 100 stories, ballads, and songs, in “broadside” format, which can be seen
in the image below, and were sold for less than a halfpenny each (Mellor and
Matlak, 201).
These
were enormously popular, selling over 2 million copies by 1796, and were
distributed not just across Europe, but all over the world. One example of a work
published for the lower classes, although not in the Cheap Repository Tracts, is “Village Politics,” published in 1793. This
is an example of a literary response directly to the French Revolution, and it
is clear that she is very much against it. Right off the bat, the reader can
see that she is trying to persuade them by the style the piece is written in,
as pointed out by Kat’s blog post, “On the surface More’s writing seems casual
and light because it is a conversation, but in fact the conversation-style of Village
Politics is its most powerful tool.” In addition to the work being much
easier to understand for the commoners than say Burke or Paine, it also serves
as a cautionary tale against plans of revolt and even makes of fool of the
people who think this is a good idea. This can be seen from the get-go when
Tom, the dumb character who wants to revolt says, “I want a new constitution,”
and Jack, the smart character who is conservative replies with this quip, “Why
I thought thou hadst been a desperate healthy fellow. Send for the doctor
directly” (210). By making a play on the dual meanings of the word constitution,
more not only shows her skillful use of the English language, but also makes
light of the very serious goals of the Revolution itself. On top of using this “innocent
conversation” to express her very extreme views, which are demonstrated through
Jack’s opinions such as during this exchange: “Tom: What then dost thou take
French liberty to be? Jack: To murder more men in one night, than ever their
poor king did in his whole life….Tom: What is the new Rights of Man? Jack: Battle,
Murder, and sudden death” (215). At this point, More is no longer using cute
puns or jokes to hide her opinion, this is clear and blatant anti-Jacobin,
conservative, anti-Revolutionary sentiment. While More is hiding behind the guise
of her male character Jack, she is still breaking all typical gender roles by
expressing this strong opinion both in and about the “public sphere,” not only
by publishing this at all, but also by having any sort of opinion regarding
politics. And just to top it all off, she manages to slip in her opinion of the
treatment of women and the “spheres,” when Jack says, “…Tom, thou dost quarrel
with Providence, and not with government. For the woman is below her husband,
and the children are below their mother, and the servant is below his master”
(212). Just in this quick, seemingly innocent description of the laws, More
manages to compare the relationship between a husband and wife to that of a
master and his slave. Thus, it becomes clear to the reader that, though “Village
Politics” seems simple, it is deceptively so, because More uses it to break
gender roles, persuade the masses, and express her extreme opinions.
Another
powerful female romantic writer we discussed this semester is Clara Reeve.
Along with Hannah More, Anna Barbauld, and many others, she belonged to a group
of women known as the “Bluestocking Circle” (though she was not one of the
founding members). Click on this link to
learn more about them. They were a literary society for women, founded by
Elizabeth Montagu in the mid-18th century. This was controversial
because it broke out of traditional gender roles, which said women weren't smart and shouldn’t be educated except for in “accomplishments,” and created an
environment which stimulated intellectual thought. It is claimed that the name
comes from the blue worsted stockings that men wore, as opposed to the silk
ones women wore, although there is controversy surrounding how this came about
(Melikian, 1). One example of this type of “advanced” literary thought comes
from Reeve’s “The Progress of Romance.” In this work of literary criticism, she
expresses her opinion regarding the transformation of traditional Romances to the
modern novel. Displaying several typical Romantic ideals, she calls upon the
past, medieval, and gothic to make her point. Similar to More’s piece, it is
written in the style of a conversation in which she bounces her own opinions
against a typical “dumb” character, unlike More however, she does have a women
representing her own opinions, but the “dumb” character is still a man. Right
off the bat, it is clear how this is breaking gender roles, just by the sheer
fact that Euphrasia is more educated than Hortensius, and is expressing her opinions
and telling him he is wrong right to his face, just as Laura suggests in her
blog post. She says, “When Hortensius finally presents an opinion he is unable
to understand the sophisticated language of Euphrasia’s retort and she
effortlessly convinces him with her arguments despite professing to be unable
to give her “argument its full weight.”One example of this is that Hortensius
(the male character) mostly just asks questions or seems confused, such as, “Pray
tell me without metaphors, your meaning in plain English?” (155). Here, he is
confused in response to an illusion made by Euphrasia to “Don Quixote,” clearly
demonstrating that she possesses more knowledge than he. Additionally, at the
end of the poem after Euphrasia and
Sophronia have finished explaining their argument, Hortensius says, “I am
astonished—admonished—and convinced!—I cannot deny the truth of what you have
advanced” (156). In this way, she not only breaks gender roles by being
educated in the first place, but shows how necessary and correct it is by the
fact that she ends up proving to the man that he is wrong.
As
I have previously called attention to in the introduction to this post, Jane
Austen’s novel Persuasion is another
example of work in which a woman attempts to achieve agency by reversing gender
roles. Austen herself is now considered to be “the finest female novelist of
this historical period” and was widely accepted as a “moderate feminist,”
meaning she was “solidly progressive in her measured examinations both of the
failures of patriarchy and of the landed gentry class and of the potential for
moral and intellectual equality between the sexes”(Mellor and Matlak, 766). This
sets her apart from the previous two authors in several ways: first, that she wasn’t
radical and never directly expressed her thoughts, secondly, that she didn’t think
that women should “break out” of their domestic sphere, and lastly, in her
style of work which was mostly lengthy novels. Despite all of these
differences, she still ties into the thread of the rest of the works by
reversing gender roles and achieving agency. Like many of her characters,
Austen exemplified the struggles of a middle class woman at that time, in that
they were given an inferior education, were entirely dependent on fathers,
husbands or brothers, and couldn’t get any ‘respectable’ work. In both her
fictional works and her life, she portrays in detail “the amorality,
irresponsibility, and selfish greed of men from the aristocracy” (Mellor and
Matlak, 767). Persuasion is no exception.
As Carly K. points out in her blog post, one major example of bending gender
roles is in the relationship of the Crofts. Unlike most marriages which are
based upon class status and money, the Crofts marriage is based upon love,
which Anne describes, “there could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes
so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved” (Austen, 59).
Additionally, they tend to break out of their spheres as Mrs. Croft goes on her
husband’s ship and Mr. Croft sometimes does chores. This is in direct
opposition to the marriage of Anne’s sister Mary to her husband Charles, which
was arranged based upon his title and is described by Carly K as “unhappy,
fraught with misunderstanding, and controlled by Mary’s nagging and complaining.”
This is clearly going against typical general roles and societal norms just as
Carly suggests.
Additionally,
as already discussed, the quote from Anne regarding history, “Men have had
every advantage of us in telling their own story…the pen has been in their
hands” (Austen, 243) also represents the breaking of gender roles. Throughout
the novel, Anne “stays in her place” and gives up her true love because he isn’t
appropriate for her station. However, this is the point in the novel where all
that shifts and Anne finally stands up and breaks free of the persuasion of
men, and expresses her own opinions. This eventually leads to her marrying her
original true love, Captain Wentworth. Contrarily, Andry’s blog post expresses
the opinion that “Even with the Enlightenment, tremendous uprisings (e.g.
French Revolution) and the Romantic period, tumultuous times in history did not
bring about great changes in human psychology as Austen points out.” While I
agree with this assessment, I do not agree with Andry’s decision about the
outcome. I do not think that people’s opinions changed, rather that women’s opinions
were allowed to be expressed for the first time and this is what brought about
the changes seen. Overall, it is clear that Austen bends typical gender roles
and these bring about positive outcomes for her characters, displaying her
opinion that this is the right thing for women to do.
Felicia
Hemans is another female Romantic Era writer discussed in class that expresses
the common theme of bending gender roles in order to achieve agency, not only
in her works but also in her actual life, in that she was “the most popular
poet in England between 1820 and 1835, second only—if that—to Byron.” This was
really the first time a woman poet had ever become this popular as described by
an epigraph from the 1802 edition of the Critical
Review, “A century ago, it was still thought wonderful in England that a
woman should versify .… her poems were ushered into the world under the
patronage of the great, and prefaced by the praise of the learned. She acquired
fame equal to her wishes, and it perished with her. The female of our own age
claim a more just and durable celebrity” (Crisafulli,
1). One example of Hemans’ attempt to rewrite history is in her poem “The Wife
of Asdrubal.” It is made clear that she is attempting to show history from a
more female perspective by the explanation of the actual story of the King of
Asdrubal which immediately proceeds her telling of the story, entirely from the
wife’s perspective. Also, as Aly points out in her blog post, not only does she
reverse gender roles, but she actually blatantly blames the man for all of the
problems in the story, in that they “betray the hearth and home” (1188). Additionally,
Aly notes she gives the Wife male characteristics, such as “dark… locks
unbound” and flushed cheeks that instead of representing innocence, produce her
“haughty mien.” While I agree with this description of the flipping of gender
roles, I do not agree with her conclusion that this means women must give up
their maternal instincts, in fact I feel as if it rather enforces them as if
saying that it takes this sort of intense manly strength and selflessness in
order to be a good mother, and that she is forced to abandon this and kill her
children only through the fault of her husband, shown when she says, “Think’st
thought I love them not?—Twas thine to fly—/Tis mine with these to suffer and
die / behold their fate!” (1189). While Hemans, in my opinion, is the strongest-willed
of all the female writers discussed in this blog post, it is clear she follows
along the same line of females achieving agency by defying gender roles.
There were many many other women discusses this semester that
embody the same traits as those discussed above such as Wollestonecraft, Aikin,
Barbauld, Edgeworth and others. These women took the opportunity given to them
by all the social unrest caused by the Enlightenment and French Revolution in
order to finally get the opportunity to tell their own story and write the female
perspective of history. While they each used different techniques, stories,
styles, and expressions of opinion, they all come together in their common goal
to further the agency of women through the bending of typical gender roles and
the blending of the “domestic” and “public” spheres. Although women may not
have achieved their goal of breaking out of these for quite some time, Romantic
women writers put us on the path to achieving the level of freedom women have
today.
Austen, Jane. Persuasion. Ed. Linda Bree. Broadview, 2000.
British Literature, 1780-1830. Ed. Mellor and Matlak. Harcourt Brace, 1996.
Crisafulli, Maria (Editor); Pietropoli, Cecilia (Editor). DQR
Studies in Literature, Volume 39 : Romantic Women Poets : Genre and Gender.
Amsterdam, NLD: Editions Rodopi, 2007. p 2.
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/vanderbilt/Doc?id=10380396&ppg=10
Kreis, Steven. “Lecture 16: The
Romantic Era.” The History Guide. 2000. http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture16a.html
The
Longman Anthology of British Literature, Volume 2B: The Victorian Age. 4th
edition. Longman Publishing, 2010.
Melikian, Souren. “The 'Bluestocking Circle'
and the fight for women's rights in literary salons.” New York Times. May 29, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/31/arts/31iht-melik31.1.13311827.html?pagewanted=all
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