Critical History of The Female Quixote
1938
“The popular Female Quixote… that Jane Austen reread and may well have derived the idea of Northanger Abbey from.”
Tillotson, A. "Review: Charlotte Ramsay Lennox. An Eighteenth-Century Lady of Letters." The Review of English Studies 14.56 (1938): 497. JSTOR. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
1941
“Mrs. Charlotte Lennox is remembered today as the author of The Female Quixote, one of the most popular novels of the eighteenth century.”
Crawford, Bartholow V. "Review: The First American Novelist." American Literature 13.1 (1941): 76. JSTOR. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
1972
“Charlotte Lennox wrote The Female Quixote in 1752, in her early twenties, to ridicule the seventeenth-century romances of La Calprenede and Mile de Scudery, with their high-flown rhetoric and extravagant plots There is still entertainment in a few of the scenes, but the young author lacked the wit and the close observation of social behaviour which was to make Jane Austen's burlesque of a comparable literary fashion so successful.”
Faulkner, Peter. "Review: The Female Quixote; Or, the Adventures of Arabella by Charlotte Lennox." The Yearbook of English Studies 2 (1972): 292.JSTOR. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
1973
“Some may find the annotations to The Female Quixote rather overvwhelming because of the sheer quantity, but on the whole this kind of editing bespeaks an overdue awareness of the primary importance of the ‘minor’ eighteenth-century novel, not just as an antiquarian, museum-piece in the study of ‘literary history,’ but as expressive symbols of cultural tradition.”
Brown, Lloyd W. "Review: The Female Quixote." Eighteenth-Century Studies 6.4 (1973): 531. JSTOR. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
1992
“Through the romantic Arabella… Lennox is able to articulate a female sexuality that she only ‘officially’ curtails and confines... The contradiction here might, of course, be a novelistic rendering of the demands that were placed on women in the eighteenth century both to satisfy an increasingly iconic function in representing beauty and sentiment and to maintain a self-regulating machinery that negated desire and restrained self-realization.”
Haggerty, George E. "Review: The Excellence of Falsehood: Romance, Realism, and Women's Contribution to the Novel." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 11.2 (1992): 370. JSTOR. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
1993
“Recent criticism has focused on tiie problem of reading in The Female Quixote; but to understand the relation between women and romance, and the status of various forms of transgression in the realms of sexuality, gender, and audiority, we also need to consider the problem of writing.”
“Or she might find herself engaged in masculine exercises, disguised in the habit of a writing-master: the author of a narrative disguised in the modest dress of a novel.”
Marshall, David. "Writing Masters and "Masculine Exercises" in The Female Quixote." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 5.2 (1993): 105-136. Print. Project MUSE. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
1996
“I will argue, however, that Arabella comes to a bad end not through patriarchal pandering or artistic lack, but because of the recalcitrance of the prob- lem described by the novel's characterization and plot. Arabella, after all, is not only female, but also a quixote—and "female" and "quixote" need not be understood synonymously.”
Motooka, Wendy. "Coming to a Bad End: Sentimentalism, Hermeneutics, and The Female Quixote." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 8.2 (1996): 251-270. Print. Project MUSE. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
2000
“Lennox's Arabella pursues a form of personal empire as she rejects domesticity and replaces it with a quest for sovereignty... Arabella, like the narrative itself, succumbs to the dominant patriarchal voice as she fails to sustain an improvised identity that allows her to retain her independence.”
Ingrassia, Catherine. "Review: Plots of Enlightenment: Education and the Novel in Eighteenth-Century England." Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies 32.4 (2000): 655. JSTOR. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
2000
“While I do not want to argue that The Female Quixote… [is] concerned with technical aspects of personal identity, [it] exemplifies the dissonances between personal identity and civil identity, dissonances that are narratively defined as connections and conflicts between self-shaping and historical fixedness.”
“The Female Quixote mocks the fiction of Madeleine de Scudéry among others (seventeenth century fiction that is by this time rather out of fashion in any case), while also revealing the author's detailed acquaintance with it and implicitly defending it.”
Zimmerman, Everett. "Personal Identity, Narrative, and History: The Female Quixote and Redgauntlet." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 12.2-3 (2000): 369-390. Print. Project MUSE. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
2005
“Lennox explores this issue throughout her novel as she represents a heroine who attempts to gain control over her life by negotiating between the customs of romance and the customs of eighteenth-century English society. In doing so, she raises the possibility of women's increased participation in public life.”
“Lennox represents Arabella as morally and intellectually superior to the other female characters in the novel, and she clearly illustrates that this superiority is not in spite of the heroine's romance reading, but because of it.
Palo, Sharon Smith. "The Good Effects of a Whimsical Study: Romance and Women's Learning in Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote." Eighteenth Century Fiction 18.2 (2005): 203-228. Print. Project MUSE. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
2008
“In contrast to modern accounts of the novel that focus on the historical author and her relationship with Samuel Johnson, to whom parts of the novel have been attributed, I argue that the novel parodies Johnson's style and literary norms.”
Uddén, Anna. "Narratives And Counter-Narratives —Quixotic Hermeneutics In Eighteenth-Century England: Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote." Partial Answers: Journal Of Literature And The History Of Ideas 2 (2008): 443. Project MUSE. Web. 1 Oct. 2014
2011
In the book’s penultimate chapter, Arabella meets a ‘good Devine’ wh conversations help her recover from her delusions about reality. Many of the novel’s critiques hail Arabella as a profeminist figure who seizes and wields it to her full desire; some also see her renunciation as a quixotism at the novel’s end as some degree of failure. These critiques see Arabella’s transformation as taming her desires. On the contrary I argue that Arabella Is taught to desired, to align her desires and self interest.
Watson, Zak. "Desire And Genre In The Female Quixote." Novel 1 (2011): Academic OneFile. Web. 3 Oct. 2014.
2014
“Through a comparative and transatlantic analysis of mimetic violence between female quixotes and their maids, this essay argues for greater consideration of socioeconomic power differentials as an additional sphere of ethical concern in these novels.”
Hanlon, Aaron R. "Maids, Mistresses, And 'Monstrous Doubles': Gender-Class Kyriarchy In The Female Quixote And Female Quixotism." The Eighteenth Century 1 (2014): 77. Project MUSE. Web. 1 Oct. 2014.
“The popular Female Quixote… that Jane Austen reread and may well have derived the idea of Northanger Abbey from.”
Tillotson, A. "Review: Charlotte Ramsay Lennox. An Eighteenth-Century Lady of Letters." The Review of English Studies 14.56 (1938): 497. JSTOR. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
1941
“Mrs. Charlotte Lennox is remembered today as the author of The Female Quixote, one of the most popular novels of the eighteenth century.”
Crawford, Bartholow V. "Review: The First American Novelist." American Literature 13.1 (1941): 76. JSTOR. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
1972
“Charlotte Lennox wrote The Female Quixote in 1752, in her early twenties, to ridicule the seventeenth-century romances of La Calprenede and Mile de Scudery, with their high-flown rhetoric and extravagant plots There is still entertainment in a few of the scenes, but the young author lacked the wit and the close observation of social behaviour which was to make Jane Austen's burlesque of a comparable literary fashion so successful.”
Faulkner, Peter. "Review: The Female Quixote; Or, the Adventures of Arabella by Charlotte Lennox." The Yearbook of English Studies 2 (1972): 292.JSTOR. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
1973
“Some may find the annotations to The Female Quixote rather overvwhelming because of the sheer quantity, but on the whole this kind of editing bespeaks an overdue awareness of the primary importance of the ‘minor’ eighteenth-century novel, not just as an antiquarian, museum-piece in the study of ‘literary history,’ but as expressive symbols of cultural tradition.”
Brown, Lloyd W. "Review: The Female Quixote." Eighteenth-Century Studies 6.4 (1973): 531. JSTOR. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
1992
“Through the romantic Arabella… Lennox is able to articulate a female sexuality that she only ‘officially’ curtails and confines... The contradiction here might, of course, be a novelistic rendering of the demands that were placed on women in the eighteenth century both to satisfy an increasingly iconic function in representing beauty and sentiment and to maintain a self-regulating machinery that negated desire and restrained self-realization.”
Haggerty, George E. "Review: The Excellence of Falsehood: Romance, Realism, and Women's Contribution to the Novel." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 11.2 (1992): 370. JSTOR. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
1993
“Recent criticism has focused on tiie problem of reading in The Female Quixote; but to understand the relation between women and romance, and the status of various forms of transgression in the realms of sexuality, gender, and audiority, we also need to consider the problem of writing.”
“Or she might find herself engaged in masculine exercises, disguised in the habit of a writing-master: the author of a narrative disguised in the modest dress of a novel.”
Marshall, David. "Writing Masters and "Masculine Exercises" in The Female Quixote." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 5.2 (1993): 105-136. Print. Project MUSE. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
1996
“I will argue, however, that Arabella comes to a bad end not through patriarchal pandering or artistic lack, but because of the recalcitrance of the prob- lem described by the novel's characterization and plot. Arabella, after all, is not only female, but also a quixote—and "female" and "quixote" need not be understood synonymously.”
Motooka, Wendy. "Coming to a Bad End: Sentimentalism, Hermeneutics, and The Female Quixote." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 8.2 (1996): 251-270. Print. Project MUSE. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
2000
“Lennox's Arabella pursues a form of personal empire as she rejects domesticity and replaces it with a quest for sovereignty... Arabella, like the narrative itself, succumbs to the dominant patriarchal voice as she fails to sustain an improvised identity that allows her to retain her independence.”
Ingrassia, Catherine. "Review: Plots of Enlightenment: Education and the Novel in Eighteenth-Century England." Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies 32.4 (2000): 655. JSTOR. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
2000
“While I do not want to argue that The Female Quixote… [is] concerned with technical aspects of personal identity, [it] exemplifies the dissonances between personal identity and civil identity, dissonances that are narratively defined as connections and conflicts between self-shaping and historical fixedness.”
“The Female Quixote mocks the fiction of Madeleine de Scudéry among others (seventeenth century fiction that is by this time rather out of fashion in any case), while also revealing the author's detailed acquaintance with it and implicitly defending it.”
Zimmerman, Everett. "Personal Identity, Narrative, and History: The Female Quixote and Redgauntlet." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 12.2-3 (2000): 369-390. Print. Project MUSE. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
2005
“Lennox explores this issue throughout her novel as she represents a heroine who attempts to gain control over her life by negotiating between the customs of romance and the customs of eighteenth-century English society. In doing so, she raises the possibility of women's increased participation in public life.”
“Lennox represents Arabella as morally and intellectually superior to the other female characters in the novel, and she clearly illustrates that this superiority is not in spite of the heroine's romance reading, but because of it.
Palo, Sharon Smith. "The Good Effects of a Whimsical Study: Romance and Women's Learning in Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote." Eighteenth Century Fiction 18.2 (2005): 203-228. Print. Project MUSE. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.
2008
“In contrast to modern accounts of the novel that focus on the historical author and her relationship with Samuel Johnson, to whom parts of the novel have been attributed, I argue that the novel parodies Johnson's style and literary norms.”
Uddén, Anna. "Narratives And Counter-Narratives —Quixotic Hermeneutics In Eighteenth-Century England: Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote." Partial Answers: Journal Of Literature And The History Of Ideas 2 (2008): 443. Project MUSE. Web. 1 Oct. 2014
2011
In the book’s penultimate chapter, Arabella meets a ‘good Devine’ wh conversations help her recover from her delusions about reality. Many of the novel’s critiques hail Arabella as a profeminist figure who seizes and wields it to her full desire; some also see her renunciation as a quixotism at the novel’s end as some degree of failure. These critiques see Arabella’s transformation as taming her desires. On the contrary I argue that Arabella Is taught to desired, to align her desires and self interest.
Watson, Zak. "Desire And Genre In The Female Quixote." Novel 1 (2011): Academic OneFile. Web. 3 Oct. 2014.
2014
“Through a comparative and transatlantic analysis of mimetic violence between female quixotes and their maids, this essay argues for greater consideration of socioeconomic power differentials as an additional sphere of ethical concern in these novels.”
Hanlon, Aaron R. "Maids, Mistresses, And 'Monstrous Doubles': Gender-Class Kyriarchy In The Female Quixote And Female Quixotism." The Eighteenth Century 1 (2014): 77. Project MUSE. Web. 1 Oct. 2014.
Reviews/ Commentary about The Female Quixote
I. “ADVERTISEMENT,
The author of the following sheets thinks himself under an indispensable obligation to inform the public that the character of Angelica and the heroic part of Carelefs, is not only borrow’d, but entirely taken, from the female Quixote, of the ingenious Mrs. Lenox.”
II. “…our fair author went earnestly to work; and, in the beginning of 1752, published the Female Quixote, which at once put the indelible seal on her literary reputation. The celebrity of this work was so great, that the first impression went off in a few weeks; and one of the most distinguished writers the world ever saw, with a candor and generosity which add lustre to his character, has acknowledged… ‘It is, indeed,’ says Mr. Fielding, ‘a work of true humour, and cannot fail of giving a rational, as well as very pleasing amusement, to a sensible reader, who will at once be instructed and highly diverted.’”
III. “The Female Quixote &c. are lasting monuments of her fine taste and superior genius as an original writer”
IV. “That delightful, that exquisite novel The Female Quixote”
V. “O LENOX, thou “in various nature wife!”
Proceed to paint our follies as they rife;
Bid the coquette in blushes hide her face,
Which affection robs of every grace:
Bid virtue, to her generous purpose true,
Press on, and keep perfection still in view.
Thus may success thy great designs attend,
And fame, and fortune, smile on virtue’s friend!”
Works Cited
Angelica; or Quixote in petticoats. A comedy, in two acts. PRINTER: London, 1758. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. Stony Brook University Libraries - SUNY. 10 Sept. 2014
The British magazine and review; or, Universal miscellany of arts, sciences, literature, history, biography, entertainment, poetry, politics, manners, amusements, and intelligence foreign and domestick. Volume 3. PRINTER: London, [1782-1783]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. Stony Brook University Libraries - SUNY. 10 Sept. 2014
Piozzi, Hester Lynch. British synonymy; or, an attempt at regulating the choice of words in familiar conversation. Inscribed, With Sentiments of Gratitude and Respect, to such of her Foreign Friends as have made English Literature their peculiar Study. Volume 2. PRINTER: London, MDCCXCIV. [1794]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. 10 Sept. 2014
Scott, Mary, poet. The female advocate; a poem. Occasioned by reading Mr. Duncombe's Feminead. PRINTER: London, M.DCC.LXXV. [1775]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Web. 11 Sept. 2014
The ladies complete letter-writer; teaching the art of inditing letters on every subject that can call for their attention, as daughters, wives, mothers, relations, friends, or acquaintance. Being a collection of letters, written by ladies, not only on the more important religious, moral, and social duties, but on subjects of every other kind that usually interest the fair sex: the whole forming a polite and improving manual, for their use, instruction, and rational entertainment. With many other important articles. PRINTER: Dublin, M.DCC.LXIII. [1763]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Web.10 Sept. 2014
The author of the following sheets thinks himself under an indispensable obligation to inform the public that the character of Angelica and the heroic part of Carelefs, is not only borrow’d, but entirely taken, from the female Quixote, of the ingenious Mrs. Lenox.”
II. “…our fair author went earnestly to work; and, in the beginning of 1752, published the Female Quixote, which at once put the indelible seal on her literary reputation. The celebrity of this work was so great, that the first impression went off in a few weeks; and one of the most distinguished writers the world ever saw, with a candor and generosity which add lustre to his character, has acknowledged… ‘It is, indeed,’ says Mr. Fielding, ‘a work of true humour, and cannot fail of giving a rational, as well as very pleasing amusement, to a sensible reader, who will at once be instructed and highly diverted.’”
III. “The Female Quixote &c. are lasting monuments of her fine taste and superior genius as an original writer”
IV. “That delightful, that exquisite novel The Female Quixote”
V. “O LENOX, thou “in various nature wife!”
Proceed to paint our follies as they rife;
Bid the coquette in blushes hide her face,
Which affection robs of every grace:
Bid virtue, to her generous purpose true,
Press on, and keep perfection still in view.
Thus may success thy great designs attend,
And fame, and fortune, smile on virtue’s friend!”
Works Cited
Angelica; or Quixote in petticoats. A comedy, in two acts. PRINTER: London, 1758. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. Stony Brook University Libraries - SUNY. 10 Sept. 2014
The British magazine and review; or, Universal miscellany of arts, sciences, literature, history, biography, entertainment, poetry, politics, manners, amusements, and intelligence foreign and domestick. Volume 3. PRINTER: London, [1782-1783]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. Stony Brook University Libraries - SUNY. 10 Sept. 2014
Piozzi, Hester Lynch. British synonymy; or, an attempt at regulating the choice of words in familiar conversation. Inscribed, With Sentiments of Gratitude and Respect, to such of her Foreign Friends as have made English Literature their peculiar Study. Volume 2. PRINTER: London, MDCCXCIV. [1794]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. 10 Sept. 2014
Scott, Mary, poet. The female advocate; a poem. Occasioned by reading Mr. Duncombe's Feminead. PRINTER: London, M.DCC.LXXV. [1775]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Web. 11 Sept. 2014
The ladies complete letter-writer; teaching the art of inditing letters on every subject that can call for their attention, as daughters, wives, mothers, relations, friends, or acquaintance. Being a collection of letters, written by ladies, not only on the more important religious, moral, and social duties, but on subjects of every other kind that usually interest the fair sex: the whole forming a polite and improving manual, for their use, instruction, and rational entertainment. With many other important articles. PRINTER: Dublin, M.DCC.LXIII. [1763]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Web.10 Sept. 2014