The sublime in women writers of the romantic period
Abstract
The sublime has been gendered as male even into the twentieth century. The purpose of this study is to show that the sublime in the Romantic Era was not confined to male writers; the sublime as an experience which effaces the mind and renders speech incomprehensible also appears in women's works. The sublime appears in The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe as a fashionable aesthetic principle, but as an experience it also is described numerous times as the result of fear, shock, awe, or erotic passion. The sublime emerges in the poem, "Slavery" by Hannah More as various things that can go out of customary boundaries. More's concerns include liberty, madness, and the social order, but other concerns such as gender roles and the erotic also become evident. More's treatise Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education invites a paradoxical reading because in trying to close possibilities, More loses control of the material and writes glaring contradictions, thus negating the limits she wishes to enforce. The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth opens a dialogue between nature and art, which has repercussions both the aesthetic and/or empirical sublime, but also for the question of how people are constructed. The complex problem of how humans become what they are encompasses both nature, or indigenous personality traits, and art, or culturally enforced roles. Finally, the novel Marriage by Susan Ferrier explores the subject of marriage while showing a paucity of happy marriages. Since women were expected to marry and gainful employment for middle- and upper-class women was scarce, most women had to marry. However, women were legally subsumed into the person of the husband, so marriage as a social system creates an incomprehensible paradox. The question of whether to marry for passion or social position also ends in an unresolvable paradox.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Hughes, Purdue University.
Subject Area
British and Irish literature|Womens studies
Off-Campus Purdue Users:
To access this dissertation, please log in to our
proxy server.