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The politics of place : the location of rank, class and gender in the novels of Frances Burney
thesis
posted on 2010-11-30, 11:45 authored by Elizabeth K. SandallThe thesis consists of an introduction; two contextualising
chapters, the first historical, the second biographical; and separate
chapters on each of Frances Burney's four novels, ordered by date of
publication. It situates Burney's fiction in the framework of the shift
in forms of social stratification from structures of rank to those of
class; a process of change which was particularly acute when Burney was
writing. It argues that the dynamics of this transition are foregrounded
in her carefully panoramic narratives. While Burney delineates an
emergent modernity for her readers, she does not simply celebrate it.
With the simultaneous promotion of traditional relationships, Burney's
novels rather evidence the contradictions and ambivalences inherent in a
period of social transformation.
The introduction positions this approach in relation to modern
Burney scholarship, and argues that the recent, almost exclusive,
concentration on issues of femininity has failed to account for or
explain many central aspects of her fiction. The first chapter is an
account of the displacement of categories of rank by those of class. It
charts the transformation of attitudes to patronage and the concomitant
shift in gender definitions, the development of new kinds of statusmarkers,
the related emergence of English nationalism, and the
importance of certain geographical locations to the process of change:
all are key phenomena in Burney's narratives. The second chapter
explores the complex social position which Burney was writing from. It
contrasts parts of the surviving sections of her father's autobiography
- which she suppressed - with her own published substitute, the Memoirs
of Dr , exploring the different strategies deployed in texts
charting the same social rise, yet written at different points in the
transition from structures of rank to those of class. The last four
chapters trace these themes through each novel in turn, considering the
construction and representation of social status, the depiction of the
patron/client relationship, and the implications of the setting, in
order to trace the gradual impact of the advent of class on Burney's
fiction.
History
School
- The Arts, English and Drama
Department
- English and Drama
Publisher
© Elizabeth Kay SandallPublication date
1996Notes
A Doctoral Thesis. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University. If you are the author of this thesis and would like to make it openly available in the Institutional Repository please contact: repository@lboro.ac.ukEThOS Persistent ID
uk.bl.ethos.360867Language
- en