Professional literary criticism by British women writers, 1789--1832: The nation's literature and the culture of criticism

The dissertation examines literary criticism by Romantic-era British women writers. During this era, the proliferation of literary periodicals, and reprints and collections of literary works gave women unprecedented opportunities as literary critics. The study focuses on women critics presenting themselves as literary professionals, conscious of their audience and competent to formulate the aesthetic principles that shape audience taste. These critics envisioned themselves as part of a historically specific literary culture to which women made vital contributions. Like their male counterparts, Romantic-era women critics discussed a variety of literary genres, accepted staff writer positions with the increasingly important literary periodicals, edited collections and series of literary works, published essays and reviews, met literary contemporaries both male and female in private and in commercial settings, and often consciously and cannily exploited the literary marketplace. Their criticism reflects the confidence and authority of the experienced and capable judge.;The two chapters of Part One concentrate on critical prefaces, Chapter One examining prefaces by Anna Letitia Barbauld and Chapter Two those by Elizabeth Inchbald. In both cases these women critics introduce the literary works of their British predecessors, making substantial contributions to shaping the canon of British literature, including bringing women writers into that canon for the first time. Further, they promoted a vision of British national character that was fundamentally middle-class, founded on and promoting the values of domesticity, privacy, and sympathetic feeling.;Part Two examines women's periodical literary reviews, revealing their far-reaching influence over aesthetic and cultural values, their grounding in a publishing culture dominated by middle-class religious Dissent, and their endorsement of and reliance on collaborative methods of literary composition. Three chapters focus in sequence on reviews authored by Mary Wollstonecraft, Anna Letitia Barbauld, and Harriet Martineau. Criticism by Mary Hays and Elizabeth Moody also receives treatment in these chapters. Through their discussion of literature in the public forum of the literary Review, these women critics addressed topics of social and political significance while shaping the taste of the British reading public to accept the aesthetic models that defined Romanticism and helped to make the British literary heritage a source of national pride.