Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Samuel Johnson
-
Standard Name: Johnson, Samuel
Used Form: Dr Johnson
Arriving in eighteenth-century London as one more young literary hopeful from the provinces, SJ
achieved such a name for himself as an arbiter of poetry, of morality (through his Rambler and other periodical essays and his prose fiction Rasselas), of the language (the Dictionary), and of the literary canon (his edition of Shakespeare
and the Lives of the English Poets) that literary history has often typecast him as hidebound and authoritarian. This idea has been facilitated by his ill-mannered conversational dominance in his late years and by the portrait of him drawn by the hero-worshipping Boswell
. In fact he was remarkable for his era in seeing literature as a career open to the talented without regard to gender. From his early-established friendships with Elizabeth Carter
and Charlotte Lennox
to his mentorship of Hester Thrale
, Frances Burney
, and (albeit less concentratedly) of Mary Wollstonecraft
and Henrietta Battier
, it was seldom that he crossed the path of a woman writer without friendly and relatively egalitarian encouragement.
She consistently takes a challenging stance in face of authority. Ironically (in view of Johnson's championing of women writers and Burns's snobbish attitude about herself) she uses Samuel Johnson
as a symbol of the tyrant-critic...
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Mary Scott
MS
brings her list up to date with significant women writers who have published since the appearance of The Feminead. Her information is not perfect—she credits Anna Williams
with some works actually written by...
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Anne Dacier
She insists on admiring the presumed simplicity of manners in the Homeric age in preference to modern, civilized, sophisticated society. Her key image for Homer
's style—of wild, luxuriant, varied growth, the opposite of a...
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Mary Masters
MM
's poems here include those from the Gentleman's Magazine, sweepingly revised. There is, however, contrary to rumour, no specific internal or external evidence to suggest that Johnson
had any hand in the revision...
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Sarah Scott
The Introductory History of Sweden, from The Middle of the Twelfth Century is in effect an essay on biography and historiography. It argues the importance of biography, and the influence which even minor figures exercise...
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Anna Letitia Barbauld
Here ALB
achieves a note of near-tragic dignity in face of political defeat—a note reminiscent of the weight and complexity of Johnson
's satires or of the recognition of defeat in her own Corsica.
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Anita Desai
In The Indian Writer's Problems (which appeared in Quest in 1970 and in the Literary Criterion in 1975, and was reprinted in Perspectives on Anita Desai), she remarks that English is the language that...
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Rachel Hunter
RH
defends her project with due modesty in a prefatory dialogue with a reader whom she calls Mr Not-At-All (after the opening words of all his answers). She says she writes for the improvement of...
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Catherine Talbot
CT
's letters often convey her literary opinions, discussing writing by, for instance, Marie de Sévigné
, Richardson
, Henry Fielding
and Samuel Johnson
. She also writes of the details of her daily life...
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Catherine Gore
The title-page quotes Byron
pronouncing shame to the land of the Gaul.
Gore, Catherine. The Lettre de Cachet; and, The Reign of Terror. J. Andrews.
title-page
A preface combats the general prejudice against a single volume
Gore, Catherine. The Lettre de Cachet; and, The Reign of Terror. J. Andrews.
iii
by citing works of fiction which are short but widely admired...
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Eliza Fenwick
For this anthology EF
gathered mostly improving pedagogical material, drawing on revered literary names like Shakespeare
and Milton
, as well as more recent and controversial writers like Thomas Chatterton
and Helen Maria Williams
...
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Sarah Chapone
This 70-page pamphlet, addressed to Parliament
, exhibits detailed knowledge of the law and of recent cases involving heiress marriage, adultery, etc. SC
finds the English law harsher to women than either ancient Roman or...
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Lucy Hutchinson
Lucretius
, as a pagan philosopher and theologian (and, as LH
and her contemporaries believed, insane much of the time and sexually promiscuous), was a daring choice for one of her religious opinions.
Lucretius, and Lucretius. “Introduction”. Lucy Hutchinson’s Translation of Lucretius, "De rerum natura", edited by Hugh De Quehen, translated by. Lucy Hutchinson, University of Michigan Press, pp. 1-20.
This collection of personal writing includes occasional poems, pastorals, burlesques, ambitious longer pieces, and The Choice of Life (which precedes Johnson
's Rasselas). Notes and an index which she later supplied to this volume...
