Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Elizabeth Singer Rowe
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Standard Name: Rowe, Elizabeth Singer
Birth Name: Elizabeth Singer
Married Name: Elizabeth Rowe
Pseudonym: Philomela
Pseudonym: The Pindarick Lady
Pseudonym: The Pindarical Lady
Pseudonym: The Author of Friendship in Death
ESR
wrote witty, topical, satirical poetry during the 1690s, followed later in life by letters, essays, fiction (often epistolary), and a wide range of poetic modes, often though not invariably with a moral or religious emphasis. Her reputation as a moral and devotional writer during her lifetime and for some time afterwards stood extremely high. Current critical debate is establishing the element of proto-feminist or amatory fiction (what Paula Backscheider
calls experimental, subversive, and transgressive) in her prose against the didactic-devotional element.
Backscheider, Paula R. Elizabeth Singer Rowe and the Development of the English Novel. Johns Hopkins University Press.
To demonstrate, as well as arguing for, mental equality, MR
learnedly surveys the course of political and literary history. She honours many women writers of the past (Aphra Behn
and Susanna Centlivre
as well...
Textual Features
Samuel Richardson
With her death Clarissa consolidates her position as Christian heroine and something close to a martyr. Her long struggle with the sin of spiritual pride (the ambition to be, as she can perceive that she...
Intertextuality and Influence
Clara Reeve
Charoba is CR
's retelling of a story which she almost certainly found in Elizabeth Singer Rowe
's History of Joseph. She builds here on Rowe (rather than on Bishop Lowth
) in suggesting...
Textual Features
Clara Reeve
CR
demonstrates the widest possible reading: from Homer
, Virgil
and Horace
(all revered) and Juvenal
and Persius
(used to prove that not all classical authors are admirable) through the heroic romances like those of...
Intertextuality and Influence
Adelaide O'Keeffe
This book might be regarded as a work of ancient Jewish history; it is also highly relevant to experiments in the possible reach of the historical novel back into ancient times. As a biblical paraphrase...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Judith Sargent Murray
She backs this pleasure in modernity with a remarkable grasp of former female history and of the women's literary tradition in English and its contexts. She mentions the Greek foremother Sappho
, the patriotic heroism...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Mary Seymour Montague
The third epistle performs the conventional act of praising historical women: the monarchs Elizabeth I
and Catherine the Great
of Russia for their exercise of power, the French scholar Anne Dacier
, and eleven British...
Intertextuality and Influence
Charlotte McCarthy
Her Letters Moral and Entertaining seem written on the model of Elizabeth Singer Rowe
's Friendship in Death. One is from a departed Spirit, to his Friend in this World.
McCarthy, Charlotte. Justice and Reason. printed for the author.
202
Those to Clara...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Mary Masters
A few of the letters discuss female friendship and feminist opinion, as if seeking to raise the consciousness of the recipient. Some in this category occur at random among other letters. Most treat topics of...
Textual Features
Janet Little
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...
Textual Features
Alethea Lewis
AL
dedicated this work to Lady B., possibly the mother of the addressee. Her preface To the Gentlemen Reviewers of British Literature goes over the reception of The Microcosm, and mentions her Vicissitudes...
AF
writes in the style of mid-century poets Gray
and especially Collins
, whose names she specifically invokes and whose words she echoes, along with classics of the past like Petrarch
. She records an...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
Her favourite topics—religious devotion, social interaction, and landscape description—are frequently linked. She hopes that contemplating the beauties of nature will lead her thoughts to their Creator, or draws moral lessons from particular natural effects, like...
Literary responses
Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
Elizabeth Rowe
, in proposing that she should pass this, in manuscript, to Watts, said he would be as proud as if an angel had given him a wreath of immortal amaranthus.
Hughes, Helen Sard. The Gentle Hertford, Her Life and Letters. Macmillan.
