Thalia's Daughters

Wikis

2007-02-02T16:45:00.000-04:00

Good or bad news, depending on how you look at it: it's a wiki world, at least according to the Globe and Mail.

So long, farewell

2007-01-29T19:20:00.000-04:00

Folks, the marks are in and your papers are wending their way up the river to the Grad. English office. I wrote on them but am more than happy to correspond or sit down with anyone who wants to discuss their work in more detail. They were, to a one, a pleasure to read, and I would regard it as a favour if anyone who does anything further with theirs, keeps me apprised. Also available to consult, for anyone planning to rewrite.

You have all been most patient, awaiting your grades. A couple of you have asked about my father; he is on an even keel, not in any discomfort, and enjoying a Guinness whenever he can get it. Thank you for your best wishes.

I'm teaching a senior undergraduate course in Restoration/18thc drama this term; it has been designated an Honours seminar and there are some good students, all of whom are blogging. If you find yourselves nostalgic for witty maidens, reformed (or not) rakes, and blocking parents, feel free to drop by.

I really enjoyed our course. You were a great group.

All the best.

Mail down

2006-12-28T10:47:00.000-04:00

My campus email seems to be down, for the second day. If any of you need to get in touch with me, you could email scribbling at gmail dot com.

Feedback on assignments

2006-12-19T16:16:00.000-04:00

I have just emailed each of you feedback on all assignments but the final paper. Please let me know if you don't get it, or if you have any questions or concerns. I can certainly have a more detailed discussion about their assignments with anyone who is interested.

Have to turn some attention to my survey students; after that, your papers.

Mary Hamilton, Bluestocking

2006-12-04T20:40:00.000-04:00

Just saw a link on a listserv I'm on, C18-L, to an article from The Observer: "Diaries reveal passions at the court of King George" by Vanessa Thorpe:

Mary Hamilton is being called 'the female Pepys' for her illuminating record of royal life at the end of the 18th century. Now a battle is being fought to save it for the nation. . . .

One of the early 'bluestockings', the term coined to describe the intellectual lady socialites of the day, Hamilton was a friend of the novelist Fanny Burney and an acquaintance of Horace Walpole, Samuel Johnson and James Boswell. In one letter she describes Burney's new novel, Cecilia, as 'a good lounging book' and elsewhere gives her opinions on Voltaire and on one of her other favourite works, The Origin and Progress of Writing and Printing by Thomas Astle, Keeper of the Tower Records: 'I should like to buy it but my pocket money won't allow of such indulgences.'

Burney

2006-12-04T00:16:00.000-04:00

Reading your blogs I see lot's of interesting responses and good questions.

• Lady Smatter, her treatment, and her character over the two plays, are issues for more than one of you.

• Silence, speaking, women's learning and writing, are central concerns.

• Discomfort with Burney's apparent satirizing of the "learned lady" recurs in your blogs.

• Some of you ask, how can we read the final speeches in each play?

Kirsten has posted some excellent questions.

I would add a couple of other ideas for your consideration:

• How do these plays compare to others we have read? How does Burney negotiate the genre? How does she work with, or against, prevailing standards and tropes?

• We began the course with The Female Wits and are ending it with The Witlings. We also began the course with Cavendish's closet dramas, and we are ending it with two writers who had difficulty having their plays performed (I refer to Baillie here as well as Burney). Are these facts simply depressing, or can we say more about women writing for the stage over the century, give or take, that has passed?

On the internets, no-one knows you're a dog

2006-12-01T14:43:00.000-04:00

Given elements of the recent conversation some of us were having on the Wiki talk pages, I wanted to post this: the "About" page of an academic blogger (a guy who works on the 18thc, in fact) in which he addresses the issue of the potentially detrimental effects some fear blogging may have on one's academic career. It's really good, and not just because he mentions me twice.

Literary Conversations

2006-11-28T13:18:00.000-04:00

It strikes me, my dears, that we have been enacting elements of 18thc literary culture on the Wikipedia talkpage of Susanna Centlivre. Though which is foremost I cannot say: the fierce parry and thrust of sharp debate, the scurrilous mud-slinging of Grub Street, or the comedy of errors, complete with beleaguered maidens and blocking figures. It also strikes me that the whole kerfuffle is an object lesson in what happens when a woman picks up the pen (or keyboard) and enters into the hostile public sphere.

Only, like Cavendish's Lady Victoria, the woman in question also has an army of Amazons.

I would suggest that we all retire to the country for a period of contemplation, and debrief next week.

One last thing . . .

2006-11-26T20:58:00.000-04:00

I have to take my father for his treatment in the morning tomorrow but it usually doesn't take too long and I expect to be in F'ton on time for class. However, if I am a little late, don't worry. (In the unlikely event that I am really late, I will call Grad. English.)

Let me know

2006-11-26T20:41:00.000-04:00

if you would all be interested in going out after our last class, for a drink/coffee, or for dinner?

Joanna Baillie

2006-11-26T20:21:00.000-04:00

If you missed it last week in class, or on Kari's blog, she intends to focus her discussion on The Tryal; a good idea, I think.

Here are a couple of things that strike me about the play:

This is the second comedy we've read (the first was Cowley's The Belle's Stratagem in which the witty heroine asks and receives her guardian's permission for her machinations. How can we interpret this shift from the parent-less scenarios of earlier plays? Kari and Brenna suggest that the treatment of the parental figures is affirmative; is it also, in any sense, conservative?

Agnes pretends to be poor in order to find a man who is interested in her for herself. But why does she up the ante and pretend to be so bad-tempered? Any thoughts about the ethics of the women's subterfuge, in general?

Duthie's intro. discusses Baillie's privileging of "the natural" over "the situational." Is this true of The Tryal?

How does this play relate to the overarching theme of marriage we have been tracing throughout?

How do these characters relate to notions of community? Is the resolution as normative as those we have seen elsewhere?

Are these plays, as Baillie's detractors claim, unstagable?

Wikipedians (and you know who you are)

2006-11-14T14:15:00.000-04:00

Two things:

There is a template to add to an entry if one is doing a big edit; see it here.

I have begun a list of early-modern women playwrights and have linked to all your posts (I hope). Feel free to add and distribute.

Lots of great posts

2006-11-12T20:01:00.000-04:00

about The Times. A couple of ideas that I would like to pursue tomorrow:

— a comparison between the way "the marriage plot" has evolved in most of our plays to date, and this one (i.e. the secondary position of the Louisa plot; the married status of the main couple);

— class conflict (social climbing, the nouveau riche, etc.);

— a related issue: the social critique (the tawdry banality of "society," etc.) implied in the title;

— the economic focus;

— the use of some familiar tropes: the "blocking figure", the witty servants, the forced marriage.

And how does the end play out all these threads? Is it contained? Open-ended? Does it back-track, as so many endings seem to do?

Finally, is Rizzo correct that Griffith is merely a competent playwright?

"Beyond Recovery"

2006-11-12T12:43:00.000-04:00

Just read the article by Jean Marsden that Andrea suggested to us and found it excellent. She addresses many of the concerns we have touched on in our discussions about projecting our own politics on to our writers. She mentions Pix, Trotter, and Manley specifically, but has a much wider focus. (And the article is short, as Andrea points out):

Marsden, Jean I. “Beyond Recovery: Feminism and the Future of Eighteenth-Century Literary Studies.” Feminist Studies 28.3 (Fall 2002): 657 – 662. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOhost.

Update

2006-11-05T13:18:00.000-04:00

A quick note to let you all know that I am suddenly dealing with a consuming situation at home: my father was diagnosed with a terminal illness last week and has been hospitalized. Many unknowns at this point, and I will keep you posted about anything that might affect the course. But I am going to be slow getting your Wikipedia assignments back to you and you have a right to know why. I hope I won't have to cancel any classes as we have no wiggle room with presentations — we have one a week scheduled until the end of term — and I don't like to ask anyone to double up (if anyone is quite certain that their presentation/discussion will be on the short side and doesn't mind doubling up, let me know, just in case). But rest assured that the completion of the course will not be affected, whatever we may need to do to ensure that.

Reading your posts,

2006-10-29T23:57:00.000-04:00

I am struck by a couple of thoughts. First, though this play has variously been described as "humane" and "laughing" and whatnot, we have some unsettling elements: quasi-incestuous abuse of power; verbal abuse and harsh confinement; physical violence; a heroine who frequently alludes to suicide. I can't help thinking of all the different stagings one might choose.

Some of you have written approvingly of Centlivre's writing. Specifically, of its relative seamlessness, it's structural unity. I don't disagree, but I am intrigued by the relationship between these perceived qualities of the play, and it disparate strains, the one comic and the other dark. Kari writes, in her discussion of taglines, that perhaps this play needs "smoothing out" for current audiences. But it would appear, for some of you, at least, that it is already "smooth." My question is, how?

In case you don't have enough to read

2006-10-29T22:42:00.000-04:00

here is a post from The Valve (skim over the head-butting in some of the comments) about Gregory Colón Semenza’s book, Graduate Study for the Twenty-first Century: How to Build An Academic Career in the Humanities. Focused on the situation in the U.S., but probably worth a read nonetheless.

Blogger

2006-10-29T21:13:00.000-04:00

has had a bad week. But they say they are on it. I hope no-one has been too frustrated.

Robert Moore

2006-10-25T00:05:00.000-03:00

will be reading from his new collection of poetry at UNBSJ this Friday evening. As he is on faculty in SJ, those of you doing Creative Writing degrees who have not yet put together full committees, in particular, may be interested in checking it out.

He is a marvellous reader, so please consider making the trip.

Neither Aristotle nor Plato

2006-10-24T08:00:00.000-03:00

it was Horace who said that literature ought to "teach and delight."

(re. our discussion yesterday)

Blogging for grad students

2006-10-17T13:15:00.000-03:00

or "gradual students," as one of my friends used to tease me when I was going through my programme.

Here is a post that discusses professionalization as one reason that graduate students might blog.

Some grad students' blogs:

As well as Scot Barnett's schizzes and flows, there are
The Long Eighteenth (Carrie Shanafelt, the founder, is a grad student, as are some of the other participants. Carrie is also one of the three authors of 18th-Century Reading Room)
Kari Krause at accidentals and substantives recently defended.
The anonymous White Bear is a grad student.
Scott Eric Kaufman at Acephalous and The Valve
Sharon Howard began blogging as a doctoral student, though she defended a couple of years ago now. (There are several people who were in grad school when I started reading them, who are now finished and still blogging.)
Kristine Steenbergh is a doctoral student.
Kristine Brorson at Historiological Notes
Amanda Watson at Household Opera is studying for her MSLIS.
Brandon Watson recently defending his doctorate in Philosophy.
Julie Meloni at No Fancy Name
Daily Reads and Random Thoughts

And, some local talent: A Ratboy's Notebook, Mr. Kong's Parlour,
Anne Ryan's Familiar Letters, and former UNB student Andrea L.'s Letters from the Rock.

This is very partial; a taste, more than a list. (Anyone stopping by, feel free to add blogs in the comments. And, bloggers, I have only used your full name if it is readily accessible on your blog, though I am happy to change or remove any of these citations).

Wikipedia articles

2006-10-13T21:53:00.000-03:00

I just responded to a question from one of you via email and thought I would post to the whole group. The question was about the relationship between your entries and the existing entries. Most of you have probably checked the history of your entries, and in almost all cases there will be a multitude of authors listed. Think of what you are doing as a collaborative project: leave what works, rework what needs it, delete anything superfluous or erroneous, and add anything necessary.

Another of you asked about the rationale I asked for. Quoting myself,

Obviously there are strictures to what you can write, and to how you write; you need to follow Wikipedia policies and guidelines. You may address any issues (for example, material that you might post if you had your druthers, but which you cannot given the policies) in your proposal.

You may also comment on why you think your reworkings are necessary or desirable. Or, conversely, why the existing post does a reasonable job.

Wikipedia entries

2006-10-12T14:16:00.000-03:00

Images are great, but remember that anything you post has to be demonstrably in the public domain.

The Schedule

2006-10-11T10:12:00.000-03:00

has been updated and the readings for the next two weeks, and some beyond that, are accessible for download. I will be on campus for a meeting this coming Friday and will put the new readings on reserve at HIL, so they should be available over the weekend (two copies of each, one of which can leave the library).

Hope you are all having fun with your Wikipedia entries; there is not much blogging about them. Any issues, consider throwing them out there.

Update: the materials were delivered to the library today (Friday).

Mary Pix

2006-10-10T14:45:00.000-03:00

There is not a lot of material on Mary Pix, either in print or online. Perhaps you could consider, in your blogging, why that might be? Why is it that Behn, Cavendish, and others are academic growth industries, while Pix is not?

Here is what I managed to dig up, after much too much time spent looking:

Mary Pix (1666-1709): some biographical information

Etexts:
The Spanish Wives (1696)
An acting version of The Beau Defeated (1700)
Restoration Theatre Song Archive, including songs from seven plays by Pix
The Restoration Comedy Project

Contemporary productions of Pix's plays:
Review of 1997 production of The Innocent Mistress
Info. and photos about a 1995 production of The Beau Defeated, by Pix.
Photos from a 2001 production

And, because of the paucity of the above:

Commentary on the theatre:
Excerpts from Jeremy Collier's A Short View of the Immorality, and Profaneness of the English Stage (London, 1698)
An Essay of Dramatick Poesie by John Dryden
An article by Richard Steele in The Spectator in which he comments on women playwrights

Some general links:
Restoration Theatre
The World of London Theatre, 1660-1800
Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama: images of theatres
Theatrical London, 1762 (map)

Biographical sources

2006-10-06T16:49:00.000-03:00

Not sure how many of these we have at UNB, but this list might be useful for your biographical projects. And don't forget the Dictionary of National Biography, for which UNB has a licence. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English might also be of use; haven't checked Quest but I have a copy. I have the two Todd books mentioned on the list, as well.

Update: All but the last book on this list — and it looks excellent; I just ordered it for the library — are available at HIL, WCL, or both, as is The Feminist Companion.

Don't forget

2006-10-05T14:00:00.000-03:00

that there is no class this coming Monday.

Enjoy the long weekend. The weather is supposed to be good!

Roving

2006-10-02T01:05:00.000-03:00

Just back from reading the course blogs, and it seems clear that we are going to have an interesting discussion tomorrow!

Some concerns that emerge from the blogs:

• the role of projection in readings of this play: projections of what "ought" to happen, of what Behn's role ought to be. And the possible projections of the critics. (A good example of this latter: more than one critic has noted that Behn shares the same initials as Angelica Bianca, and has argued that the character is perhaps to some extent an avatar, or in some way representative of Behn and her attitudes. And yet as we have read, Behn inherited the name from Killigrew's Thomaso. A blatant example of careless scholarship, perhaps? But to play the devil's advocate: Behn changed most of the other characters' names, but kept Angelica's. So while the initials were a coincidence, perhaps the keeping of them was not.)

• to what extent is Behn complicit with the sexual violence she depicts? can we interpret this play as in any way subversive? (and how can we define "subversive" in a 17thc context?)

• the relationship between her attitude towards women's issues and her Royalist politics

• Behn's representation/critique/enforcement? of the "virgin/whore" dichotomy

Other points to consider:

• while some of you allude to social constraints on women, we also need to look at the constraints on Behn as a playwright, and as a woman playwright

• we need to consider the formal constraints of the genre of the Restoration comedy: what was possible, what wasn't. In some ways this was as highly patterned a form as, say, a haiku (okay, some might say a limerick. But the point still holds).

I would also like to discuss the relationship between the two plays: is Part II just a rehash with an alternate ending? What are we to think of La Nuche and her choices? Is she any sort of a role model? How do we interpret that fact that she "gets the guy"? We need to appreciate how unusual an ending it really is.

The Lorenzo Reading Series

2006-09-28T15:46:00.000-03:00

is already underway. Wonderful writers. Anyone in the area, come on down.

A World made by Atomes

2006-09-25T00:55:00.000-03:00

With ref. to Gallagher's article (32): Cavendish's Atomic poems

A World made by Atomes
Margaret Cavendish (1653)

Small Atomes of themselves a World may make,
As being subtle, and of every shape:
And as they dance about, fit places finde,
Such Formes as best agree, make every kinde.
For when we build a house of Bricke, and Stone, [5]
We lay them even, every one by one:
And when we finde a gap that's big, or small,
We seeke out Stones, to fit that place withall.
For when not fit, too big, or little be,
They fall away, and cannot stay we see. [10]
So Atomes, as they dance, finde places fit,
They there remaine, lye close, and fast will sticke.
Those that unfit, the rest that rove about,
Do never leave, untill they thrust them out.
Thus by their severall Motions, and their Formes, [15]
As severall work-men serve each others turnes.
And thus, by chance, may a New World create:
Or else predestined to worke my Fate.

Margaret Cavendish: some links

2006-09-24T21:24:00.000-03:00

"[The] Reason why I write in Verse, is, because I thought Errours might better passe there, then in Prose, since Poets write most Fiction, and fiction is not given for Truth, but Pastime." Margaret Cavendish, Poems and Fancies (1653)

Significant sites:
Margaret (Lucas) Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673): a page on Anniina Jokinen's wonderful Luminarium (caveat: music plays when one opens the main page). She posts quotes, life, works (etexts to many of her works, mainly poems), essays, books (up to 2004), and more.
The Margaret Cavendish Society: includes some links and a bibliography
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcaste: contains biography, bibliography, and links to etexts

Other sites:
Margaret Cavendish Study Group: a listserv
The Margaret Cavendish page at Sunshine for Women, an good online resource for early women's writing.
Margaret Cavendish at the Women Writers Archive
Cavendish Family Papers, held at the University of Nottingham
Wikipedia entry: an active entry, recently edited

Student sites:
The page of one of my former undergraduates
The page of another of my former undergraduates
Margaret Lucas Cavendish (1623-74): from an undergrad philosophy class

Etexts: (for many more links check the above sites)
A True Relation of My Life and Breeding from the Hypatia Institute, a site dedicated to women scientists
from The Blazing World, her fantastic voyage/utopian narrative
The Atomic Poems (Women Writers Resource Project)
"A World in an Eare-Ring": nice example of Cavendish's melding of science and art
Other scientific poems

Selected Critical Works: (many more online articles available from licensed databases)
Essays from the Fifth Biennial International Margaret Cavendish Conference, Early Modern Literary Studies Special Issue 14 (May, 2004): full texts online
Women's Writing 4.3 (1997): Special Issue on Margaret Cavendish. Only TOC and abstracts available to non-subscribers.
In-between: Essays & Studies in Literary Criticism 9.1&2 (2000): special issue on Margaret Cavendish (TOC only)
Bertuol, Roberto. "The Square Circle of Margaret Cavendish: the 17th-century conceptualization of mind by means of mathematics." Language and Literature 10.1 (2001):21-39.
Kramer, Annette. "'Thus by the musick of a ladyes tongue': Margaret Cavendish's dramatic innovations in women's education." (PDF) Women's History Review 2.1 (March 1993):57-79.
Smith, Emily. "Genre’s 'Phantastical Garb': The Fashion of Form in Margaret Cavendish’s Natures Pictures Drawn by Fancies Pencil to the Life." Early Modern Literary Studies 11.3 (January, 2006):1-40.
Suzuki, Mihoko. "Margaret Cavendish and the female satirist." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 37.3 (Summer 1997):483(18).
Wagner, Geraldine. "Romancing Multiplicity: Female Subjectivity and the Body Divisible in Margaret Cavendish's Blazing World." Early Modern Literary Studies 9.1 (May, 2003):1-59

Illustrations:
Frontispiece, Blazing World
Front page, Sociable Letters
Engraving of Margaret Cavendish by Peter van Schuppen. From the frontispiece to Philosophical and Physical Opinions (1655).
Portrait

And, finally:
"[Margaret Cavendish had] an imagination that makes Salvador Dali seem like an accountant." In Search of the World's Worst Writers

What is Liquid?
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle

All that doth flow we cannot liquid name
Or else would fire and water be the same;
But that is liquid which is moist and wet
Fire that property can never get.
Then 'tis not cold that doth the fire put out
But 'tis the wet that makes it die, no doubt.

Class meetings

2006-09-18T22:42:00.000-03:00

As it turns out, there is now a bus going from F'ton to SJ for a grad. course on Tuesdays, leaving at 8:30 and returning at 4. Our course has started and you all signed on on the understanding that it would be Mondays, in F'ton. But, I have been asked to ask you: any chance that you would be interested in migrating? In order to do so, everyone would have to be completely in agreement. Don't feel you have to reply publicly; you are welcome to email me.

I fully expect this will go nowhere, and justly so. But will throw it out anyway.

In search of

2006-09-17T14:01:00.000-03:00

four blogs.

Any problems, drop me a line.

First class

2006-09-11T20:55:00.000-03:00

Wonderful to meet you all. I think we will have a good term together. The blog addresses are flowing in — sort of — and I look forward to receiving more.

See you online, and again next week.

Welcome

2006-09-11T13:00:00.000-03:00

to the course blog for English 6465: Women Onstage in the Long Eighteenth Century. Here you will find links, updates, and information about the course texts, schedule, and assignments. More importantly, blogging will serve as a venue for continuing the conversations we will have in class.

Thalia, by the way, was one of the nine Muses; she was the Muse of Comedy. This painting is by Jean-Marc Nattier (1685-1766).

WebCT; PDF files

2006-09-07T15:08:00.000-03:00

I have enabled WebCT for this course so I will have a place to store PDF files for you to download.

Where these files are available, they are indicated in the schedule.

Signing up for presentations; setting up your blog

2006-09-07T01:11:00.000-03:00

You may notice that one of your colleagues has already put in a bid for a particular presentation topic. If anyone else would like to do the same, either leave a comment here or email me (jones at unbsj dot ca). Otherwise, I hope that we can sign everyone up during the first class.

You might also notice that there is already one course blog listed in the blogroll, to the left. Feel free to go ahead and set up yours. If you have an existing blog of some sort you may of course use it, and if you have preferred blogger software and/or a server, feel free to use them. Otherwise (and this will be most if not all of you, I imagine), the easiest thing to do will be to set up a blog at blogger.com. There is free hosting at blogspot.com, the default setting for Blogger. Go to the site and follow the instructions (be sure to record your password, user name and title exactly, and give some thought to each beforehand). The main difficulty you are likely to face in this very straightforward process is that the name you have chosen for your blog, for your user name or for your URL (internet address) may have already been taken by some other enterprising blogger.

You may chose to blog under your own name or under a pseudonym, particularly if you have any concerns about online security. Either choice is fine as long as the other members of the group know who is who.

We will discuss this more in class. I anticipate that some of you will be anxious or sceptical about weblogging, and I look forward to trying to convince you otherwise.

For blogging tips go here.

Weblog/participation

2006-08-06T09:15:00.000-03:00

Weblog: at least one substantial entrydue weekly; mark will be calculated after Dec. 4
Weblog/participation (25%)

Each member of the class is expected to initiate and maintain a blog (a weblog)[1] about the readings, class discussions, assignments, and related matters (such as other texts you are reading or have read, &tc.). I may post specific questions for you to address.

Resources will be made available for those who are less experienced. As this is not a computer design class, emphasis is on content.

You are expected to read and respectfully yet incisively comment on others' blogs/posts. This is an interactive exercise.

Resource: start with Blogging.

See also here and comments here.

[1] Please note: If you really don't want to do this assignment, you may hand in a series of journal entries throughout the term.

Paper

2006-07-25T16:50:00.000-03:00

Abstracts: due Nov. 6
Final paper (35%): due Dec. 4

Chose a play written by a woman playwright between 1660 and 1800 and write a well-developed, articulate, article-length paper that explores a fresh aspect of the text. You may look at more than one play, and more than one writer, but be sure not to water down your focus with too broad a field.

I am available for consultation throughout the process. To that end, I would like to see an abstract fairly early in the process.

You are encouraged to blog about the research and writing processes.

Biographical Assignment/Presentation

2006-07-25T15:33:00.001-03:00

Biographical Assignment (20%): due Oct. 16th
Presentation (20%): due throughout term

Most of you are aware of Wikipedia. Your assignment is to choose one of our playwrights and
i) write/edit/emend the Wikipedia entry on her, and
ii) present material about her and her play to the class on the day scheduled to discuss her work.

Biographical Assignment

Here are the writers with links are to their Wikipedia entries, where they exist. Some of these articles are full and some are "stubs" in need of expansion.

Margaret Cavendish
Aphra Behn
Mary Pix (stub)
Catherine Trotter (stub)
Susanna Centlivre
Eliza Haywood
Elizabeth Griffith
Hannah Cowley (stub)
Joanna Baillie (stub)
Frances Burney

This assignment will be completed in several phases. First, I would like to see your proposed material/emendations, along with a rationale and bibliography. At that point I will either give you a green light or further suggestions; once your proposal is finished to both our satisfactions, you (or a technophilic proxy) will post your material and/or emendations online, for the world to see.

Obviously there are strictures to what you can write, and to how you write; you need to follow Wikipedia policies and guidelines. You may address any issues (for example, material that you might post if you had your druthers, but which you cannot given the policies) in your proposal.

Wikipedia links:

Guidelines, help, and resources
Help Menu
Policies and guidelines

Course Texts

2006-06-23T15:43:00.000-03:00

Here are the texts that have been ordered; they should be available soon at the UNBF Bookstore. It is acceptable to read other editions, and some plays are available online. However, much of the secondary material in these editions — specifically in the Broadview editions, which are particularly well done — are required reading.

Baillie, Joanna. Plays on the Passions. Ed. Peter Duthie. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2001.

Behn, Aphra. The Rover. Ed. Anne Russell. Second edition. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 1999.

Burney, Frances. The Witlings and The Woman-Hater. Ed. Peter Sabor & Geoffrey Sill. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2002.

Cavendish, Margaret. Bell in Campo and The Sociable Companions. Ed. Alexandra G. Bennett. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2002.

Finberg, Melinda C., Ed. Eighteenth-Century Women Dramatists. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Three additional plays (Anon., The Female Wits [Women Writers Project]; Trotter's Love at a Loss; Haywood's A Wife to Lett) will be available on reserve, and one (Behn's The Rover Pt. II) online.

A series of critical articles will be made available on reserve or online.

Schedule

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A note re. reading: In all cases, please pay particular attention to the prologues and other dedicatory materials. The items under the "Further Reading" heading are mainly for interest.

Sept. 11 — Brief history of, and attitudes toward, women on stage; introduction to course; signing up for blogs

Sept. 18 — Anonymous, The Female Wits (1696) (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve. Note: there are two versions on reserve; one is a facsimile and so more difficult to read, but it is included because it has a useful introduction. Also, you may want to use it to compare with the Women Writer's Project version, as they ask readers to contact them with any corrections to their edition.)

Articles:
Finke, Laura A. "The Satire of Women Writers in The Female Wits." Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660-1700 8.2 (Fall 1984): 64-71. (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve)

Day, Robert Adams. "Muses in the Mud: the Female Wits Anthropologically Considered." Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 7.3 (1980): 61-74. (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve)

Video: 'Tis Pity She's A Whore: The First Women on the London Stage
Excerpts from Stage Beauty

Sept. 25 — Margaret Cavendish, Bell in Campo and The Sociable Companions (1662; 1668)

Articles:
Gallagher, Catherine. "Embracing the Absolute: The Politics of the Female Subject in Seventeenth-Century England." Genders 1 (Spring 1988): 24-39. (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve)

Straznicky, Marta. "Reading the stage: Margaret Cavendish and Commonwealth closet drama." Criticism 37.3 (Summer 1995): 355ff. (available online through EBSCOhost Academic Search Elite)

Further reading:
Here is an online facsimile of Cavendish's Plays, never before printed which includes The Sociable Companions (1668) (on Early English Books Online [EEBO]. EEBO is a licensed database so you will need to log in through UNB).

Oct. 2 — Aphra Behn, The Rover, or The Banish'd Cavaliers (1677);
The Second Part of the Rover (1681); and
a small package of prologues and other material (available as PDF file via WebCT)

Articles:
Hobby, Elaine. "No Stolen Object, but Her Own: Aphra Behn’s Rover and Thomas Killigrew’s Thomaso." Women's Writing 6.1 (1999): 113-127. (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve)

Thompson, Peggy. "Closure and Subversion in Behn’s Comedies." Broken Boundaries: Women and Feminism in Restoration Drama. Ed. Katherine H. Quinsey. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1996. 72-88. (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve)

Further reading:
Two facsimiles of the first part, one from 1677 and one from 1697, and one of the second (1681), all on EEBO.

Oct. 9: — Thanksgiving: No classes.

Oct. 16 — Mary Pix, The Innocent Mistress (1697) (in Finberg)

Articles:
Gómez, Carlos. "Witty Women Masking Gender and Identity: The Comedies of Mary Pix in Context." Re-shaping the Genres: Restoration Women Writers. Zenón Luis-Martinez and Jorge Digueroa-Dorrego, eds. Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2003. 123-156. (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve)

McLaren, Juliet. "Presumptuous Poetess, Pen-Feathered Muse: The Comedies of Mary Pix." Gender at Work: Four Women Writers of the Eighteenth Century. Ann Messenger, ed. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1990. 77-113. (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve). Please note: I obtained this article through intra-library resource sharing and the lender neglected to copy the accompanying notes. ~~I have put in another request but I doubt I will get them in time for our class.~~ The notes are now available as a PDF file via WebCT.

Further reading:
Facsimile of 1697 printing on EEBO.

Due date: Proposals for Wikipedia entries due.

Oct. 23 — Catherine Trotter, Love at a Loss (1700) (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve)

Critical reading:
From Anne Kelley, Catherine Trotter: An early modern writer in the feminist vanguard (Ashgate, 2002): intro., Chs. 1, 3, 4. (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve)

Presentation: Jesse F.

Oct. 30 — Susanna Centlivre, The Busybody (1709) (in Finberg)

Articles:
Collins, Margo. "Centlivre v. Hardwicke: Susannah Centlivre's plays and the Marriage Act of 1753." Comparative Drama 33.2 (1999):179-199. (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve)

Frushell, Richard C. "Marriage and Marrying in Susanna Centlivre's Plays." Papers on Language & Literature 22.1 (Winter 1986:16ff. (available online via EBSCOhost Academic Search Elite).

Presentation: Andrea D.

Nov. 6 — Eliza Haywood, A Wife to be Let (1724) (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve)

Articles:
Fields, Polly Stevens. "Manly Vigor and Woman's Wit: Dialoguing Gender in the Plays of Eliza Haywood." Compendious Conversations: The Method of Dialogue in the Early Enlightenment. Kevin L. Cope, ed. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1992. 257-266. (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve)

Wilputte, Earla A. "Wife pandering in three eighteenth-century plays." Studies in English Literature 38.3 (Summer 1998): 447ff. (available online via EBSCOhost Academic Search Elite).

Presentation: Susie B.

Due date: Abstracts for papers are due.

Nov. 13 — Elizabeth Griffith, The Times (1779) (in Finberg)

Articles:
Rizzo, Betty. "'Depressa Resurgam': Elizabeth Griffith's Playwriting Career." Curtain Calls: British and American Women and the Theater, 1660-1820. Mary Anne Schofield and Cecilia Macheski, eds. Athens: Ohio UP, 1991. 120-142. (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve)

Smallwood, Angela J. "Women and the Theatre." Women and Literature in Britain, 1700-1800. Vivien Jones, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. 238-262. (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve)

Presentation: Brenna C. G.

Nov. 20 — Hannah Cowley, The Belle's Stratagem (1780) (in Finberg)

Articles:
Isikoff, Erin. "Masquerade, Modesty, and Comedy in Hannah Cowley's The Belle's Stratagem." Look Who's Laughing: Gender and Comedy. Gail Finney, ed. Langhorne, PA: Gordon and Breach, 1994. 99-117. (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve)

Wallace, Elizabeth Kowaleski. "Theatricality and Cosmopolitanism in Hannah Cowley's The Belle's Stratagem." Comparative Drama 35.3/4 (2001): 415-434. (available as PDF file via WebCT; on reserve)

Presentation: Patrick T.

Nov. 27 — Joanna Baillie, Plays on the Passions (1798)

Articles:
Burroughs, Catherine B. "'A Reasonable Woman’s Desire’: The Private Theatrical and Joanna Baillie's The Tryal." Texas Studies in Literature and Language 38.3/4 (1996): 265-285. (available as PDF file via WebCT; soon to be on reserve)

Purinton, Marjean D. "Joanna Baillie's Count Basil and De Monfort: the unveiling of gender issues." Romantic Ideology Unmasked: The Mentally Constructed Tyrannies in Dramas of William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and Joanna Baillie. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1994. 125-162, 187-189. (available as PDF file via WebCT; soon to be on reserve)

Presentation: Kari T.

Dec. 4 — Frances Burney, The Witlings and The Woman-Hater (1779; 1796-1801)

Articles:
Darby, Barbara. "Censored Women: The Witlings." Frances Burney, Dramatist: Gender, Performance, and the Late-Eighteenth-Century Stage. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1997. 22-42. (available as PDF file via WebCT; soon to be on reserve)

Saggini, Francesca. "From Evelina to The Woman Hater: Frances Burney and the "Joyce" of Dramatic (Re)writing." Studi settecenteschi 20 (2000):315-332. (available online: HTML and PDF)

Further reading:
The Witlings had its world premiere in 1998 [UNB login required].

Presentation: Kirstie M.

Due date: Papers are due.

Assignments

2006-06-22T17:43:00.000-03:00

Here is a tentative list of the course assignments. More detail to follow, but in brief:

Biographical assignment — 20%
Presentation — 20%
Paper — 35%
Participation/Weblog — 25%