Writing Masters and “Masculine Exercises” in The Female Quixote
David Marshall, Yale University
Volume 5, no. 2, January 1993
©McMaster University, 2015. All articles published on the Eighteenth-Century Fiction website are protected by copyright held by Eighteenth-Century Fiction, a journal published by the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University.
ABSTRACT
In book 2 of The Female Quixote, or The Adventures of Arabella the narrative of Arabella’s history opens up to include the story of a character named Miss Groves. Following the death of her father, Arabella’s uncle and her cousin Glanville have left for London, hoping for a “Reformation” that will cure Arabella of her addiction to romances and her belief that they “were real Pictures of Life.” Contrary to the “Command” and “Will” of her father, Arabella has refused to marry Glanville, who leaves regretting “the little Power his Father had over her” (64-65). Wishing for “an agreeable Companion of her own Sex and Rank,” Arabella attends church one day and meets Miss Groves; “this Fair one” (p. 67) reminds her of one of Scudery’s heroines.
Other ECF articles on the topic of “Charlotte Lennox” include:
The Good Effects of a Whimsical Study: Romance and Women’s Learning in Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote
by SHARON SMITH PALO (ECF 18.2, Winter 2005-6)
Personal Identity, Narrative, and History: The Female Quixote and Redgauntlet
by EVERETT ZIMMERMAN (ECF 12.2-3, January-April 2000)
Mid-Century English Quixotism and the Defence of the Novel
by BREAN S. HAMMOND (ECF 10.3, April 1998)
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