TY - GEN T1 - Mothers of the nation : women's political writing in England, 1780-1830 T2 - Women of letters (Bloomington, Ind.) A1 - Mellor, Anne Kostelanetz LA - English PP - Bloomington PB - Indiana University Press YR - 2000 UL - https://ebooks.jgu.edu.in/Record/jstor_eba_ocn606309470 AB - British women writers were enormously influential in the creation of public opinion and political ideology during the years from 1780 to 1830. Anne Mellor demonstrates the many ways in which they attempted to shape British public policy and cultural behavior in the areas of religious and governmental reform, education, philanthropy, and patterns of consumption. She argues that the theoretical paradigm of the "doctrine of the separate spheres"may no longer be valid. According to this view, British society was divided into distinctly differentiated and gendered spheres of public versus private activities in the 18th and 19th centuries, Surveying all the genres of literature'drama, poetry, fiction, non-fiction prose, and literary criticism'Mellor shows how women writers promoted a new concept of the ideal woman as rationally educated, sexually self-disciplined, and above all, virtuous. This New Woman, these writers said, was better suited to govern the nation than were its current fiscally irresponsible, lecherous, and corruptible male rulers. Beginning with Hannah More, Mellor argues that women writers too often dismissed as conservative or retrogressive instead promoted a revolution in cultural mores or manners. She discusses writers as diverse as Elizabeth Inchbald, Hannah Cowley, and Joanna Baillie; as Charlotte Smith, Anna Barbauld, and Lucy Aikin; as Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Reeve, and Anna Seward; and concludes with extended analyses of Charlotte Smith's Desmond and Jane Austen's Persuasion. She thus documents women writers' full participation in that very discursive public sphere which Habermas so famously restricted to men of property. Moreover, the new career of philanthropy defined by Hannah More provided a practical means by which women of all classes could actively construct a new British civil society, and thus become the mothers not only of individual households but of the nation as a whole OP - 172 CN - PR468.P57 M45 2000 SN - 9780253028198 SN - 0253028191 SN - 0253337135 SN - 9780253337139 SN - 025321369X SN - 9780253213693 KW - English literature : 19th century : History and criticism. KW - Politics and literature : Great Britain : History : 19th century. KW - Politics and literature : Great Britain : History : 18th century. KW - English literature : Women authors : History and criticism. KW - English literature : 18th century : History and criticism. KW - Women and literature : England : History : 19th century. KW - Women and literature : England : History : 18th century. KW - Great Britain : Politics and government : 1760-1820. KW - Great Britain : Politics and government : 1820-1830. KW - Women authors, English : Political and social views. KW - English literature : History and criticism. KW - Littérature anglaise : 19e siècle : Histoire et critique. KW - Politique et littérature : Grande-Bretagne : Histoire : 19e siècle. KW - Politique et littérature : Grande-Bretagne : Histoire : 18e siècle. KW - Littérature anglaise : Histoire et critique. KW - Littérature anglaise : 18e siècle : Histoire et critique. KW - Femmes et littérature : Angleterre : Histoire : 19e siècle. KW - Femmes et littérature : Angleterre : Histoire : 18e siècle. KW - Écrivaines anglaises : Pensée politique et sociale. KW - Écrits de femmes anglais : Histoire et critique. KW - Grande-Bretagne : Politique et gouvernement : 1760-1820. KW - Grande-Bretagne : Politique et gouvernement : 1820-1830. KW - LITERARY CRITICISM : European : English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh. KW - English literature KW - English literature : Women authors KW - Politics and government KW - Politics and literature KW - Women and literature KW - England KW - Great Britain KW - 1700-1899 KW - Criticism, interpretation, etc. KW - History ER -