Unit:
Κατεύθυνση Ευρωπαϊκή ιστορίαLibrary of the School of Philosophy
Supervisors info:
Κωνσταντίνος Γαγανάκης, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής Νεότερης Ευρωπαϊκής Ιστορίας, Tμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Εθνικό Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Μαρία Παπαθανασίου Eπίκουρη Καθηγήτρια Νεότερης Ευρωπαϊκής Ιστορίας, Tμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Εθνικό Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Κατερίνα Κωνσταντινίδου, Επίκουρη Καθηγήτρια Ιστορίας Νέου Ελληνισµού, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Εθνικό Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Original Title:
Η διαμόρφωση του εαυτού δια μέσου της λογοτεχνίας: Γυναίκες συγγραφείς και ηρωίδες στην Αγγλία του 18ου αιώνα
Translated title:
The Making of the Self through Literature: Women Writers and Heroines in 18th century England
Summary:
The main theme of the present paper is the examination of how literature contributes in the formation of the self. More specifically it examines how women's involvement with writing activities, in England in the period of 1640-1818, the rise of the novel and the production of literary heroines by the pen's of women writers, contributed in the claiming of independent female selfhood.
The first question this paper deals with is how the identity of woman writer was contracted in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Therefore the first chapter refers to the conditions which permited a great number of women to write in order to publish their writing, the literary genres women distinguished themselves, the reactions that followed their entrance into the professional world of writing and certain strategies women writers developed. It also examines the case of the literaty career of Charlotte Lennox (1729-1804).
The second chapter is about the relationship of literature with the idea of the self. After a brief mention of the historic evolution of the idea of the self, in the religion and philosophical thought of Europe, with a special emphasis in the rise of concpets like interiority and introspection, the discource goes on to the rise of the novel. This literary genre, which was new in 18th cenury England, has a special place in the history of the self, since it has been the most successful in the representantion of the self and its experience as an individual. This chapter ends with a discussion of Charlotte Lennox's novel The Female Quixote (1752), which contains an interesting presentantion of the relationship of fiction, the novel and the constraction of the female self.
The third and final chapter is dedicated to the 18th century literary heroines. In claiming the identity of the writer, women developed the literary traditions of sense and sensibility and inserted in literature the voice of the woman subject, along with the reflections, the criticism and the point of view of women. In examining the heroines of novels of these traditions one can see the expansion of the ideas, the concpets and the representation of female selfhood.
Main subject category:
History
Keywords:
woman, women, women writers, self, idea of the self, women's history, history of ideas, literary history, literature, gender history, gender studies, cultural studies, Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote, England, Great Britain, 18th century, English literature, British Literature
Number of references:
281
