Gender and Language in British Literary Criticism, 1660-1790

An analysis of the way in which gendered language was used in eighteenth-century literary criticism.

During the eighteenth century, British critics applied terms of gender to literature according to the belief that masculine values represented the best literature and feminine terms signified less important works or authors. Laura Runge contends however that the meaning of gendered terms like 'manly' or 'effeminate' changes over time, and that the language of eighteenth-century criticism cannot be fully understood without careful analysis of the gendered language of the era. She examines conventions in various fields of critical language - Dryden's prose, the early novel, criticism by women, and the developing aesthetic - to show how gendered epistemology shaped critical 'truths'. Her exploration of critical commonplaces, such as regarding the heroic and the sublime as masculine modes and the novel as a feminine genre, addresses issues central to eighteenth-century studies.

1. Many words on Mount Parnassus; 2. Dryden's gendered balance and the Augustan ideal; 3. Paternity and regulation in the feminine novel; 4. Aristotle's sisters: Behn, Lennox, Fielding and Reeve; 5. Returning to the beautiful; Polemical postscript; Bibliography.

Laura Runge argues that an understanding of eighteenth-century literary criticism requires careful analysis of the way in which gendered language - including terms such as 'manly' and 'effeminate' - was used. Her exploration addresses issues central to eighteenth-century studies.