"From Behn to Barbauld (roughly 1690-1800)" and the Ladies In-Between
Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Lennox, Frances Burney... All of these names should ring a bell in our English Educator minds! Why aren't these women's works being taught in our classrooms?
On a Personal Note:
In high school, I did not read any of these female writers' works. I was not exposed to their artful language and imagery; therefore, my early writing and reading experience was hindered. I truly believe in the power of knowledge and, had I been exposed to these writers, I would have been more interested in English class, more skilled in reading and writing, and better prepared for college. In high school, I did not particularly like English class. I only enjoyed the grammar and vocabulary aspect of it. It was not until my Freshman year of college when I read Virginia Woolf's "The Mark on the Wall" (1917) that I discovered my passion for all literature. The ladies of the 18th-Century had to work to prove themselves to their readers and, therefore, put forth extreme amounts of effort to write cleverly. The work of the 18th-Century female writers is like no other. Their work has many deeper meanings and often comments on real life in the 18th-Century that is still relevant today. Even just one classroom experience with an 18th-Century female text could light the fire of inspiration for students. Students are so impressionable at this age-- the ladies need to be empowered and the young men need to be educated on equal rights women deserve. The works of the 18th-Century does that without even trying. The impact that these female writers had (and still have) on the world of literature and the early feminist movement is essential to the learning and growth of secondary education students. The classroom can be used as a critical space for feminist recovery of these early feminist writers.
The Experts Say:
Laura Runge, a Professor at the University of South Florida says in her article, "Teaching Eighteenth-Century women Writers," that "Specific attention to teaching women writers of the 18th century would be useful because the historical and literary events of the Enlightenment present unique teaching opportunities. Women in the period from 1660 to 1800, for example, participate in a series of transitions from a relatively closed, courtly manuscript culture of the Renaissance to a thriving Romantic era print culture in which women played an important role. The 18th century has been called the ‘Age of the Emerging Female Author’ (Rogers and McCarthy, Meridian Anthology of Early Women Writers xiii)" (pg 1). The Enlightenment period can (and should be) turned into fruitful teaching opportunities in the secondary English classroom. The transitions (in many aspects) that this period hosted allow for in-depth discussion and understanding through literature among students.
Runge goes on to say, "We want to encourage this process of recursive thinking in our students as they encounter the writings of the past. It is an open-ended process that yields hypotheses, tentative conclusions, and most importantly rereading. At the same, time it emphasizes how complex and sometimes contradictory the process of reading is when we are attuned to the differences of culture and time. If the instructor can resist telling the students what the work means, this process trains students to construct meaning through their own critical thinking, guided by the instructor" (pg 9).
Runge on focus and purpose:
"This article cannot anticipate all pedagogical contexts for which it would be appropriate to teach 18th century women, but it may be helpful to sketch some possibilities for organizing a course or section on 18th century women writers. To begin, Staves’ A Literary History presents a narrative of the rise of the woman writer that is, in her terms, ‘bittersweet’ (26). The bold Restoration writers, such as Katherine Phillips, Margaret Cavendish, and Aphra Behn, were anomalous by comparison with the community of women writers in the 1780s (e.g. Griffith, Seward, More, Burney, Reeve, Barbauld, Smith), who constituted a ‘normal, albeit minority, part of literary production’ (25). As the middle chapters of Staves’ book demonstrate, the woman writer’s acceptance in the public world of literary production came with her relegation to a subordinate position in the literary ‘family’: daughter, sister, sometimes wife (230). The narrative of her rise thus also inscribes a loss of political power and a circumscription of the field of knowledge. Following the historical contexts that Staves describes, a course might sample the variety of genres in which women wrote successfully, including philosophy (Astell), religious writing (Rowe), letters (Wortley Montagu), histories (Macauley), and translations and essays (Lennox) with an aim to expand our idea of literature in keeping with 18th century cultural expectations. Further, the course might include writings from the colonies, such as the poems of Anne Bradstreet, letters from Abigail Adams or the essays of Judith Sargeant Murray. One of the goals of such a course would be to characterize British women’s writing as part of the nation as constructed at the time. Given the way this course reshapes how we think about 18th century women’s literary history, it highlights authors and texts that have not as yet been popular in the classroom. It would be difficult, therefore, to teach with an anthology, and many works would need to be supplied in alternative formats" (pg. 7).
Runge on 18th-Century Poetry:
"A more focused but equally revisionist course would emerge from Backscheider’s Eighteenth-century Women Poets and Their Poetry. Backscheider advocates for seeing poetry through the eyes of 18th century readers and writers who had yet to embrace the novel. I plan to assign Backscheider’s ‘Introduction’ to all my advanced 18th century literature courses, because it conveys how essential poetry was to 18th century society: ‘poetry in the eighteenth century was written for more reasons than we can imagine’ (3); it ‘was the privileged literary form, and its destiny was to enunciate national and personal morality’ (7). Her introduction celebrates the diversity, intelligence and influential participation of women in a predominant cultural phenomenon. A course based on Backscheider’s work would be bookended by the two most significant ‘career’ poets of the era: Finch and Smith. A case study of each poet would invite serious reconsideration of the poetic forms they made their own: the fable and pastoral dialog (Finch) and the sonnet (Smith). In between the course could take up various manifestations of the religious poem, friendship poem, retirement poems and elegy, hopefully representing some of the accomplished but frequently overlooked poets such as Jane Brereton and Elizabeth Hands. An instructor could begin by assigning Lonsdale’s anthology of Eighteenth-century Women Poets, but this has only small selections by each poet and so would need supplementing" (pg 7). While my resource here focuses in on short stories and novels, poetry is essential to the understanding of the 18th-Century literature world and, therefore, is a fruitful subject to include in English courses.
Cambridge on Teaching:
"Teaching the 18th-Century" by Cambridge Scholars Publishing says in its introduction (by Dr. Mary Ann Rooks) that "The eighteenth century, whose English literature draws from revolutionary developments in the sciences and philosophy, a shifting about of economic realities (including the rise of mercantilism and a middle class), and an explosion of generic possibilities, is often treated as an inconvenient stepchild in literary studies and curriculum development for English majors. Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton are unquestioned essentials in the course of an undergraduate student’s literary career, but Swift, Pope, and Gay, let alone authors like Haywood, Equiano, and Scott, or nonWestern authors like Shen Fu and Chikamatzu, are too frequently ignored. This collection aims to draw attention to the eighteenth-century as an essential era for undergraduate literature studies, to participate in a conversation about the “best practices” of teaching various texts of the period, and to energize further pedagogical dialogue considering multicultural, multidisciplinary approaches to this wonderfully rich and diverse field. Inspired by the conversations of like-minded professors interested in promoting eighteenth-century literature through informed, innovative teaching, this collection began as a series of presentations at the South Central Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference. As a group, our early aim was simply to organize a venue for interested parties to hold regular, informal discussions about teaching eighteenth-century texts. This publication is an extension of those conversations" (vii). Assuming that a student plans to seek higher education, what better way of preparing students for their undergraduate studies than to introduce these topics beforehand.
(See Don Reese's chapter "Putting the Enlightenment in High School English" page 95 for more info).
Sources:
Rooks, Mary Ann, et al. "Teaching the Eighteenth Century" Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pages 1-20. Retrieved from https://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/60603
Runge, Laura. "Teaching Eighteenth Century women Writers. University of Florida. pages 1-15. Retrieved from file:///home/chronos/u-1fd13ba790773c342eb9f853e310a0bef3bbd81d/MyFiles/Downloads/Teaching_Eighteenth-
Century_women_Write.pdf
Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Lennox, Frances Burney... All of these names should ring a bell in our English Educator minds! Why aren't these women's works being taught in our classrooms?
On a Personal Note:
In high school, I did not read any of these female writers' works. I was not exposed to their artful language and imagery; therefore, my early writing and reading experience was hindered. I truly believe in the power of knowledge and, had I been exposed to these writers, I would have been more interested in English class, more skilled in reading and writing, and better prepared for college. In high school, I did not particularly like English class. I only enjoyed the grammar and vocabulary aspect of it. It was not until my Freshman year of college when I read Virginia Woolf's "The Mark on the Wall" (1917) that I discovered my passion for all literature. The ladies of the 18th-Century had to work to prove themselves to their readers and, therefore, put forth extreme amounts of effort to write cleverly. The work of the 18th-Century female writers is like no other. Their work has many deeper meanings and often comments on real life in the 18th-Century that is still relevant today. Even just one classroom experience with an 18th-Century female text could light the fire of inspiration for students. Students are so impressionable at this age-- the ladies need to be empowered and the young men need to be educated on equal rights women deserve. The works of the 18th-Century does that without even trying. The impact that these female writers had (and still have) on the world of literature and the early feminist movement is essential to the learning and growth of secondary education students. The classroom can be used as a critical space for feminist recovery of these early feminist writers.
The Experts Say:
Laura Runge, a Professor at the University of South Florida says in her article, "Teaching Eighteenth-Century women Writers," that "Specific attention to teaching women writers of the 18th century would be useful because the historical and literary events of the Enlightenment present unique teaching opportunities. Women in the period from 1660 to 1800, for example, participate in a series of transitions from a relatively closed, courtly manuscript culture of the Renaissance to a thriving Romantic era print culture in which women played an important role. The 18th century has been called the ‘Age of the Emerging Female Author’ (Rogers and McCarthy, Meridian Anthology of Early Women Writers xiii)" (pg 1). The Enlightenment period can (and should be) turned into fruitful teaching opportunities in the secondary English classroom. The transitions (in many aspects) that this period hosted allow for in-depth discussion and understanding through literature among students.
Runge goes on to say, "We want to encourage this process of recursive thinking in our students as they encounter the writings of the past. It is an open-ended process that yields hypotheses, tentative conclusions, and most importantly rereading. At the same, time it emphasizes how complex and sometimes contradictory the process of reading is when we are attuned to the differences of culture and time. If the instructor can resist telling the students what the work means, this process trains students to construct meaning through their own critical thinking, guided by the instructor" (pg 9).
Runge on focus and purpose:
"This article cannot anticipate all pedagogical contexts for which it would be appropriate to teach 18th century women, but it may be helpful to sketch some possibilities for organizing a course or section on 18th century women writers. To begin, Staves’ A Literary History presents a narrative of the rise of the woman writer that is, in her terms, ‘bittersweet’ (26). The bold Restoration writers, such as Katherine Phillips, Margaret Cavendish, and Aphra Behn, were anomalous by comparison with the community of women writers in the 1780s (e.g. Griffith, Seward, More, Burney, Reeve, Barbauld, Smith), who constituted a ‘normal, albeit minority, part of literary production’ (25). As the middle chapters of Staves’ book demonstrate, the woman writer’s acceptance in the public world of literary production came with her relegation to a subordinate position in the literary ‘family’: daughter, sister, sometimes wife (230). The narrative of her rise thus also inscribes a loss of political power and a circumscription of the field of knowledge. Following the historical contexts that Staves describes, a course might sample the variety of genres in which women wrote successfully, including philosophy (Astell), religious writing (Rowe), letters (Wortley Montagu), histories (Macauley), and translations and essays (Lennox) with an aim to expand our idea of literature in keeping with 18th century cultural expectations. Further, the course might include writings from the colonies, such as the poems of Anne Bradstreet, letters from Abigail Adams or the essays of Judith Sargeant Murray. One of the goals of such a course would be to characterize British women’s writing as part of the nation as constructed at the time. Given the way this course reshapes how we think about 18th century women’s literary history, it highlights authors and texts that have not as yet been popular in the classroom. It would be difficult, therefore, to teach with an anthology, and many works would need to be supplied in alternative formats" (pg. 7).
Runge on 18th-Century Poetry:
"A more focused but equally revisionist course would emerge from Backscheider’s Eighteenth-century Women Poets and Their Poetry. Backscheider advocates for seeing poetry through the eyes of 18th century readers and writers who had yet to embrace the novel. I plan to assign Backscheider’s ‘Introduction’ to all my advanced 18th century literature courses, because it conveys how essential poetry was to 18th century society: ‘poetry in the eighteenth century was written for more reasons than we can imagine’ (3); it ‘was the privileged literary form, and its destiny was to enunciate national and personal morality’ (7). Her introduction celebrates the diversity, intelligence and influential participation of women in a predominant cultural phenomenon. A course based on Backscheider’s work would be bookended by the two most significant ‘career’ poets of the era: Finch and Smith. A case study of each poet would invite serious reconsideration of the poetic forms they made their own: the fable and pastoral dialog (Finch) and the sonnet (Smith). In between the course could take up various manifestations of the religious poem, friendship poem, retirement poems and elegy, hopefully representing some of the accomplished but frequently overlooked poets such as Jane Brereton and Elizabeth Hands. An instructor could begin by assigning Lonsdale’s anthology of Eighteenth-century Women Poets, but this has only small selections by each poet and so would need supplementing" (pg 7). While my resource here focuses in on short stories and novels, poetry is essential to the understanding of the 18th-Century literature world and, therefore, is a fruitful subject to include in English courses.
Cambridge on Teaching:
"Teaching the 18th-Century" by Cambridge Scholars Publishing says in its introduction (by Dr. Mary Ann Rooks) that "The eighteenth century, whose English literature draws from revolutionary developments in the sciences and philosophy, a shifting about of economic realities (including the rise of mercantilism and a middle class), and an explosion of generic possibilities, is often treated as an inconvenient stepchild in literary studies and curriculum development for English majors. Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton are unquestioned essentials in the course of an undergraduate student’s literary career, but Swift, Pope, and Gay, let alone authors like Haywood, Equiano, and Scott, or nonWestern authors like Shen Fu and Chikamatzu, are too frequently ignored. This collection aims to draw attention to the eighteenth-century as an essential era for undergraduate literature studies, to participate in a conversation about the “best practices” of teaching various texts of the period, and to energize further pedagogical dialogue considering multicultural, multidisciplinary approaches to this wonderfully rich and diverse field. Inspired by the conversations of like-minded professors interested in promoting eighteenth-century literature through informed, innovative teaching, this collection began as a series of presentations at the South Central Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference. As a group, our early aim was simply to organize a venue for interested parties to hold regular, informal discussions about teaching eighteenth-century texts. This publication is an extension of those conversations" (vii). Assuming that a student plans to seek higher education, what better way of preparing students for their undergraduate studies than to introduce these topics beforehand.
(See Don Reese's chapter "Putting the Enlightenment in High School English" page 95 for more info).
Sources:
Rooks, Mary Ann, et al. "Teaching the Eighteenth Century" Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pages 1-20. Retrieved from https://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/60603
Runge, Laura. "Teaching Eighteenth Century women Writers. University of Florida. pages 1-15. Retrieved from file:///home/chronos/u-1fd13ba790773c342eb9f853e310a0bef3bbd81d/MyFiles/Downloads/Teaching_Eighteenth-
Century_women_Write.pdf