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WOMEN READERS AND THE VICTORIAN JANE AUSTEN
by
Alice Marie Villaseñor
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(ENGLISH)
December 2009
Copyright 2009 Alice Marie Villaseñor
Object Description
| Title | Women readers and the Victorian Jane Austen |
| Author | Villaseñor, Alice Marie |
| Author email | withheld per the author |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | English |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2009-07-29 |
| Date submitted | 2009 |
| Restricted until | Restricted until 25 Nov. 2011. |
| Date published | 2011-11-25 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Schor, Hilary M. |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Kincaid, James Collins, James |
| Abstract | "Women Readers and the Victorian Jane Austen" reveals how the study of women's contributions to Victorian debates is vital to understanding Austen's literary reputation. More generally, it also stakes a claim for the central role of the nineteenth-century novel as a crucial genre for women writing literary criticism. I analyze unexamined feminist readings of Austen's work in canonical novels alongside lesser-known works of fiction, family history manuscripts, letters, and other ephemera in the Bodleian Library, the Hampshire Record Office, and the Jane Austen House Museum. Taken together, the case studies in this recovery project demonstrate that feminist thought is inextricably intertwined with Jane Austen's critical legacy. Contrary to current assumptions, Austen's feminism was not "discovered" during the second-wave feminist movement by scholars in the academy (e.g., Margaret Kirkham, Sandra Gilbert, Susan Gubar, and Claudia Johnson) -- rather, it has always been an integral, though largely ignored, aspect of women's responses to Austen's work.; The first two chapters of the project unearth the work of two Victorian woman writers in the Austen family: Catherine Hubback and Fanny Caroline Lefroy. Their interpretations of Austen's stories challenge images of Austen presented by male-authored reviews in Victorian literary magazines as well as nineteenth-century biographies penned by men in the Austen family. Drawing on the recovery work of these initial chapters, my third chapter suggests that Charlotte Brontë's novel Shirley (1849) can be read as a critical response to Austen's novels. My reading recontextualizes the most infamous female response to Austen in Victorian times: Charlotte Brontë's critiques of Austen's novels written in letters to George Eliot's companion George Henry Lewes. The dissertation ends with a chapter that highlights the importance of reexamining the making of Jane Austen's literary reputation. I show how ideas from Victorian texts still influence interpretations of Austen's novels as I scrutinize Jane Austen's own engagement with Samuel Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison (1753-1754). |
| Keyword | Austen, Jane; Brontë, Charlotte; Hubback, Catherine; Lefroy, Fanny Caroline; Lewes, George Henry; Richardson, Samuel; Austen-Leigh, James Edward; Fielding, Helen; The Watsons; Persuasion; Pride and Prejudice; Mansfield Park; letters of Jane Austen; The Younger Sister; Temple Bar; Austen family history; Shirley; Sir Charles Grandison; Bridget Jones's Diary; nineteenth-century novel; eighteenth-century novel; feminist criticism; reception history; Victorian literary magazines; Victorian letters, Victorian manuscripts; women readers; women writers |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m2756 |
| Rights | Villaseñor, Alice Marie |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | http://www.usc.edu/isd/libraries/services/ask_a_librarian/email/ |
| Filename | etd-Villasenor-3195 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume26/etd-Villasenor-3195.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Full text | WOMEN READERS AND THE VICTORIAN JANE AUSTEN by Alice Marie Villaseñor A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (ENGLISH) December 2009 Copyright 2009 Alice Marie Villaseñor |
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