Academic literature on the topic '1689-1761 Criticism and interpretation History'

This dissertation examines ways in which women constructed and criticized matrimony both before and after their own marriages. Social historians have argued for the rise of companionacy in the eighteenth century without paying attention to women's accounts of the fears and uncertainties surrounding the prospect of marriage. I argue that having more latitude to choose a husband did not diminish the enormous impact that the choice would have on the rest of a woman's life; if anything, choice might increase that impact. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Hester Mulso Chapone, Mary Delany, and Eliza Haywood recorded their anxieties about and their criticisms of marriage in public and private writings from the early years of the century into the 1750s. They often elide their own complex backgrounds in favor of generalized policy statements on what constitutes a good marriage. These women promote an ideal of marriage based on respect and similarity of character, suggesting that friendship is more honest, and durable than romantic love. This definition of ideal marriage enables these women to argue for more egalitarian marital relationships without overtly calling for a change in the wife's traditional role. The advancement of this ideal of companionacy gave women a means of promoting gender equality in marriage at a time when they considered marriage risky but socially and economically necessary.

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
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Resumo: Este trabalho se dedica ao estudo do romance epistolar 'Clarissa, or the history of a young lady', de autoria do inglês Samuel Richardson, publicado entre os de anos 1747-48. O propósito é realizar uma pesquisa historiográfica através da interpretação da narrativa literária. A obra, objeto deste estudo, recria muitas das tensões sociais, políticas e religiosas latentes na sociedade inglesa do século XVIII. Os percalços vividos pela heroína da trama, entre o campo e a cidade, permitem analisar as relações sociais e de gênero da Inglaterra das Luzes. A trama conta a história de Clarissa, donzela d aristocracia rural inglesa que recebe a herança do avô, motivando disputas familiares. O primogênito preterido convence a família a casá-la com um homem odioso, para evitar sua independência e lucrar com o negócio. Clarissa se recusa ao matrimônio e passa a ser perseguida dentro de casa. Para escapar da tirania, ela foge para Londres com Lovelace, libertino que lhe faz a corte contra a vontade de sua família. Seu desejo de autonomia é interrompido quando seu raptor a aprisiona num bordel e a violenta. Para preservar sua vontade de virtude e a independência de seu espírito, Clarissa escolhe a morte como única saída moral possível. Com efeito, meu objetivo foi entender aquela sociedade a partir das páginas do romance, cuja análise, também, derivou de questões e referências exteriores à trama
Abstract: This work is dedicated to the novel 'Clarissa, or the history of a Young lady', written by Samuel Richardson, and published in 1747-48. My purpose was to make a historiographic research by using a literary narrative. This novel creates, in a literary way, many of the most important social, political, and religious conflicts of the Eighteenth Century English society. The mishaps of the life of the novel's protagonist, between the country and the city, allowed me to analyze the social and gender relations in the Enlightenment England. The plot tells us the story of Clarissa, an aristocratic maiden in rural England. She inherits an estate from her grandfather, which provokes a familiar disturbance. The deprecated old brother convinces the family to marry her to an odious man, to avoid her independence and to profit from the business. She refuses the marriage and her persecution begins at home. In order to escape from tyranny, she fled to London with the libertine Lovelace, who courts her against her family's will. Her wish for autonomy is interrupted when his abductor imprisons and rapes in a brothel. She wishes virtue and an independent soul, and that's why she chooses death, as the only possible way to maintain her moral intact. Indeed, my goal with this research was to understand the mentioned society from the pages of the novel,whose analysis also comes from questions and references external to the plot
Mestrado
Politica, Memoria e Cidade
Mestre em História

This thesis examines representations of trust in selected British sentimental novels of the eighteenth century. It focuses principally on the manner in which sentimental prose fiction reflects and participates in the shift from premodern to modern formations of trust. Commenting on the nature of modern trust, Anthony Giddens claims that, with the move to modernity, trust relations in the intimate sphere become increasingly dependent on emotional mutuality, while trust in institutions becomes increasingly impersonal and disengaged from assessments of moral character.
My work explores this dual shift in three sentimental novels. It first analyzes Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) and contends that Richardson denies the concept of honor its epistemological role in practical deliberations. The denial of the epistemology of honor uncouples the mechanism of personal trust from assessments of role and role performance and thus makes the trust in persons in the intimate sphere less dependent on institutional forms of trust. To replace honor's role in the formation of trust, Richardson proposes that the sentiments can provide reliable grounds for trust in the intimate sphere. However, he denies the sentiments a role in the formation of an encompassing social trust among strangers and mere acquaintances. The thesis proceeds to read Henry Fielding's Amelia (1751). In order to argue that Fielding envisioned divergent grounds for trust relations, it maintains that Fielding considers trust relations in the intimate sphere and trust relations in public life as based on the sentiments and fair distribution respectively. To conclude, the thesis investigates Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) to uncover the manner in which Goldsmith distinguishes personal trust in the intimate sphere from general system trust, which Goldsmith ultimately envisions as an ontological trust in providence.