This seminar will introduce students to works by a range of British and American female writers across the period 1660-1800. We will consider the contributions amateur and professional writers made to prose fiction and non-fiction. Students will also be invited to examine female contributions to the related genres of translation, poetry and playwriting and to explore the relationship between gender and genre. Each writer’s output will be placed in the context of the material conditions impacting female writers, and we will analyse key responses to female writing, and the ways in which the critical reception of female writers, such as Philis Wheatley, Aphra Behn and Eliza Heywood, has changed over time.
Texts will be posted on Moodle for students to print and bring to class.
Credit requirements are regular attendance, active participation and an end of term paper of 3000 words. The number of students in this course is limited to thirty. Only the first thirty students to register will be accepted as participants.