I was only planning to read female authors from my Classics Club list this year (since they’re having their Women’s Classic Literature event), but a recent film trailer took me back to Tarzan of the Apes (1912) by Edgar Rice Burroughs. When I first read Tarzan as a young teen, “with the noble poise of his handsome head upon those broad shoulders, and the fire of life and intelligence in those fine, clear eyes” he became one of my (many) literary crushes (Chapter XIII).
While he was “muscled as the best of the ancient Roman gladiators … yet with the soft and sinuous curves of a Greek god,” what impressed me most was that Tarzan taught himself to read from books he found in his human parents’ cabin. He could read and write fluent English by the age of 18, even though the only other language he had any experience with was the limited vocabulary of the fictive “anthropoid apes” who raised him. By the end of the book, he speaks fluent French as well. I consider myself reasonably intelligent, had the advantage of not being raised by apes, and I haven’t even managed to become bi-lingual.
Yet shadowed by these descriptions of a super human Tarzan is a disturbing form of racism. Racism is evident from the moment the first black characters appear in the story, yet it goes far deeper than a matter of antiquated ideas about race popping up in the way a Classics author writes descriptions. Burroughs’ racism in Tarzan represents a mindset heavily influenced by evolutionary ideas about biology and race. Read more →
When I first read Evelina, my observation was that Frances Burney’s style “represents a shift nearing the latter part of the 18th century from fiction as a didactic tool to fiction as a pleasurable reading experience.” While I’m good as saving my literary observations (I have copies of everything I wrote in college), I’m apparently not very good at taking my own advice. This is the first time I’ve read Evelina for pleasure rather than analysis
I chose Evelina for a reread on my Classics Club Book List, and it also fits neatly into the Classics Club’s year-long Women’s Classic Literature Event (Tweet about it with #ccwomenclassics). The first time I read Evelina was in Spring 2010 for an upper-level course on The Early British Novel. Though I didn’t hate any of the other 4 books in this course, Burney’s little epistolary novel from 1778 was by far my favorite.
It’s no wonder, then, that when our professor asked me and one other student if we’d like to read more Burney in an independent study I said “yes.” We read Cecelia (1782) and Camilla (1796) – both weighing in at a solid 900+ pages. Then we branched out into Ann Radcliffe with The Romance of the Forest. That lead me to my first undergraduate research project titled “Unmanned Heroes: 18th Century Female Writers and Male Sentimentality. That turned into a 25-page research paper titled “Biblical Answers to the 18th Century Gender Crisis” (click on the title if you’d like to read this), which led me back to reading Evelina academically.
Me at the Denman Undergraduate Research forum in 2012
Now, 4 years later, I’m back reading Evelina and enjoying it more than ever. Frances Burney was a fantastic (and, sadly, under appreciated) writer. Though Evelina was first published anonymously, Burney never hid the fact that she was a female writer. Her novels were quite popular with the general reading public and in artistic circles even during a literary age we often think of as belonging only to “dead white man.” Her style and success paved the way for writers like Jane Austen. In fact, Austen took her title Pride and Prejudice from a scene in Burney’s second novel, Cecilia, and when Austen’s father was seeking publication for that novel he described it as “about the length of Miss Burney’s Evelina.”
Comparing Burney to Austen (another favorite writer of mine), there are clear similarities, especially in Evelina. Both writers focus on a young woman who “marries up” by the end of the novel. Both critique society and social norms with a thinly-veiled sarcastic wit. But the differences are at times even more striking than the similarities. Nowhere in Austen will you find a scene like the one in Evelina when Captain Mirvan impersonates a highwayman and drags Madam Duval into a ditch where he terrifies her for sport. And, though Austen does have her Mr. Willoughbya and Mr. Wickhams, you’ll not find any of her main characters in situations so dangerous as Evelina’s.
Throughout the course of the novel, Evelina is persecuted by a man named Lovel, hounded and even kidnapped by Sir Clement, affronted by a staring Lord (in front of his fiancee), and rudely accosted by strange men at Vauxhall. To quote an essay by Judith Newton that appeared in a 1976 edition of Modern Language Studies, there are few places Evelina can go “without being forced, intruded upon, seized, kidnapped, or in some other way violated.” Newton describes this persecution as a “woman’s fate” once she entered into the marriage market in the 1700s, and points out that Burney “is one of the few writers in the century to take the discomfort of it seriously.”
Indeed, while I’ve frequently thought I might like to visit Jane Austen’s England, Burney’s is much less appealing. It’s populated with aggressive and vulgar people, the public places are unsafe without a large party and/or male protection, and it’s painfully obvious how vulnerable and option-less women were without family and fortune to their name. But it also feels more real. Sense and Sensibility came out in 1811 and Pride and Prejudice in 1813 – a scant 33 and 35 years after Evelina. Things had changed, but not that much. Much as I love Austen, I wonder if Burney was in some ways the braver novelist for calling out her contemporary society on its darker sides.
Click here to get a copy of Evelina. Please note that this is an affiliate link. This means that, at no additional cost to you, I will receive a commission if you click on the link and make a purchase.
Last week, I compared A Secret Garden to my favorite fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast. The subject of this week’s Classics Club post, A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, has fairy tale elements which are even more obvious.
It’s pretty much the exact same story as Cinderella — an only child whose sweet disposition is unaffected by being spoiled is left in the care of an unkind woman after her father’s unexpected death. The austere and jealous guardian transforms the girl into a servant who lives in an attic and makes friends with rodents and birds. Eventually, a wealthy man swoops in and rescues her (Tweet about it).
There are even jealous “step-sister” figures in the form of some of the girls at the school (we’re looking at you, Lavinia). And you could call Ram Dass a “fairy godmother” of sorts, since he transforms Sara’s dingy attic into a princess room simply because he notices she’s so kind and wants to do something nice for her. It’s a key fairy-tale trope — eventually Magic (or it’s human equivalent) will step in and set things right if only you’re a good person.
I suppose there might be better ways to spend a Sunday than baking scones, reading and blogging about books and watching Star Trek, but I really can’t think of any right now. They’re cinnamon apple oatmeal scones, and the books are by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and it’s classic Trek with Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Does it get any better?
Both The Secret Garden and A Little Princess are re-reads on my Classics Club book list. They were some of my favorite books as a child, and my sister and I watched the film adaptations over and over when we were younger. Since they also qualify for the Women’s Classic Literature event, I decided to make them my first classics reads for the new year.
I can’t tell you how much I wanted a secret garden. Actually, I never really outgrew that — I’m sure gardens surrounded by high stone walls covered with ivy are more alluring than ones just sitting out in the front yard where anyone can see them. That garden with its hidden door is probably why The Secret Garden was always my favorite of the two books. That and the fact that there were boy characters — books with just girls in them are nice, but books with boys and girls are better even when there isn’t a hint of romance. Read more →
Extra post this week because I’m so excited about the Women’s Classic Literature Event hosted by The Classics Club. I’ve read many great classics written by women, and look forward to discovering more over the next year. Even if you’re not part of the Classics Club reading challenge, you’re still welcome to jump on board with this event using the #ccwomenclassics hashtag to share what you’re reading.
A Survey for the Women’s Classic Literature Event
Introduce yourself. Tell us what you are most looking forward to in this event.
As a female writer, I’m all for reading literature written by women. I studied English at The Ohio State University, and my undergraduate research project focused on Frances Burney and Mary Wollstonecraft. For this event, I’m most looking forward to seeing my fellow readers discover amazing classics by women writers, and then gathering suggestions from them for my own “to-read” list.
Have you read many classics by women? Why or why not?
I have read quite a few. We picked out some for my high school curriculum (homeschooled), then in college I was blessed to take classes from English professors who made sure to teach fine books written by both men and women.
Pick a classic female writer you can’t wait to read for the event, & list her date of birth, her place of birth, and the title of one of her most famous works.
Mary Shelley, born 30 August 1797 in London, England. I’ve read some of her mother’s writings, but nothing by her. Frankenstein is Mary Shelley’s most famous work.
Favorite classic heroine? (Why? Who wrote her?)
Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Bronte. I love first-person narrative when it’s well written, and Bronte makes Jane a spectacular narrator. She’s a strong, clever woman and I admire her moral strength and unabashed living out of her Christian faith. (Bonus: Jane’s a fictional example of my INFJ personality type.)
Recommend three books by classic female writers to get people started in this event. (Again, skip over this if you prefer not to answer.)
Evelina by Frances Burney. I did my undergraduate research project on Burney, and highly recommend her work to fans of Jane Austen. Evelina is the shortest and most manageable of her novels, so I suggest trying that one out before jumping into the 900+ page Cecelia or Camilla.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. If you haven’t read this famous classic yet, I hope you will. It’s one of my favorite books of all time, and I love the characters.
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. I love this book and the BBC adaptation staring Daniela Denby-Ashe and Richard Armitage. The casting is perfect, and my only quibble with the plot adaptation is the ending/proposal scene … but no more on that for fear of spoilers.
Will you be joining us for this event immediately, or will you wait until the new year starts?
I’ll probably write about Tenant of Wildfell Hall in November or December.
Do you plan to read as inspiration pulls, or will you make out a preset list?
I’ll pull from the women writers already on my Classics Club list, and maybe add a few more as inspiration strikes.
Share a quote you love by a classic female author — even if you haven’t read the book yet.
Here’s one I took note of when reading Anne Bronte’s Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
I’m not actually all that far behind on my reading for the Classics Club book challenge — I’m just behind on blogging about the books. Right now, I’m halfway through Anna Karenina, and I recently finished Tenant of Wildfell Hall and The Iliad. Since I also have to write about The Iliad for the high school curriculum I’m building (which my brother is trying out this year), that’s the one I wanted to talk about today.
Usually, I like to read something about the author’s history and the time period framing their writings when I explore a piece of classic literature. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about Homer. There’s even debate about whether or not he’s the one who wrote down the epic poems he (probably) composed. The introduction to the Robert Fagles translation seems to lean toward Homer writing his own poems down once the art of writing was reintroduced to Greece, though it’s all “pure speculation.” I suppose in some way the mystery surrounding these texts makes them even more intriguing.
Having once been told by a nihilistic classmate that nothing original has been written since Homer, I was rather curious to finally read The Iliad. While I can’t say I agree with him, it’s not hard to see The Iliad‘s influence on modern literature, and when I get around to reading The Odyssey (also on my Classics list) I’m sure I’ll notice even more themes that show up in modern plot and characterization.
What intrigued me most, though, was the portrayal of women in The Iliad. Though several women have lengthy passages of dialogue (including Helen and Hector’s wife Andromache), and goddesses play a huge role in the plot, they’re all show in some kind of captivity to men. No matter how strong of a character Andromache is, once she loses Hector she has no social position and no hope of avoiding slavery. Paris stole Helen, and she makes no secret of how badly that has affected her and how little she respects him. Other female characters, like Briseis, are already captives in the Achaean camp. Even the goddesses are under Zeus’s power, and his threats toward Hera starting in Book 1 portray an eyebrow-raising level of domestic abuse on Olympus.
The intriguing part is that Homer doesn’t give the impression that this portrayal of women is entirely okay. He does imply it’s “normal” for that time period, but he takes great care to show the womens’ side of the story more than one might expect in a poem mainly about the wars of gods and men. We see goddesses scheming to get around restrictions of the gods. We get plenty of dialogue from Helen, showing that ten years haven’t simply turned her into a submissive or entirely complicit captive even though her inner turmoil is ignored by both Aphrodite and Paris. Even Briseis — the captive Agamemnon steals from Achilles — has a chance to give her side of the story and make sure no one forgets that she (and by extension the other female captives mentioned as spoils of war or offered as prizes at Patroclus’ funeral games) is a human being.
It makes me miss having University access to databases full of scholarly journals — I’d love to read what people who have the time/resources to study these characters better are writing. I did find one interesting article, though: The Portrayal of Women in the Iliad by S. Farron. He says, “Homer had different attitudes from his characters. He knew that women are complete human beings and constantly emphasized how deep and intense their feelings are.” I’d agree with this writer that Homer was trying to craft real characters, not urge social reform, but it’s still intriguing that he realized women were worth writing well. He treated them as real characters with emotions and thoughts that were relevent to the story, which is more than his male characters did.
Click here to get a copy of The Iliad. Please note that this is an affiliate link. This means that, at no additional cost to you, I will receive a commission if you click on the link and make a purchase.
. Please note that this is an affiliate link. This means that, at no additional cost to you, I will receive a commission if you click on the link and make a purchase.
I’m not actually all that far behind on my reading for 
. Please note that this is an affiliate link. This means that, at no additional cost to you, I will receive a commission if you click on the link and make a purchase.
Like An Anchor 