Veils of Irony : The Development of Narrative Technique in Women's Novels of the 1790s
Sammanfattning: Innovation in literary history may originate in minor as well as major novelists of the past. This study evaluates the contribution to literary history made by three unknown English women writers: Jane West, Charlotte Smith and Anna Maria Bennett. West’s A Gossip’s Story, Smith’s The Old Manor House, and Bennett’s The Beggar Girl were popular among the reading public and appreciated by critics when they were published in the 1790s. To a modern reader the novels may seem fragmented and dated. However, when they are situated against the background of the literary climate of the day, it is possible to see their subtle and subversive irony.Mainly through parody of the popular woman’s novel, West, Smith and Bennett question the gendering of forms that was typical of the eighteenth century, creating new and sophisticated narrative techniques in the process. They show a concern with the contemporary reader of popular novels, and in fact educate this reader for more sophisticated forms of fiction to come. The final chapter of this study examines Jane Austen’s use of parody in Emma, in light of the literary achievements of her three predecessors.
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