Emily in the Castle of Udolpho In yesterday’s post I discussed anxious parents and proposed Northanger Abbey as a sane approach to teenage reading (and movie watching and internet using). I elaborate here. I start first with the reading material in question. Heroine Catherine Moreland and her best friend Isabella Thorpe are enthralled with the […]
Monthly Archives: September 2009
The Rebellious Thrill of Gothics
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged adolescence, Anne Radcliffe, Italian, Jane Austen, Mysteries of Udolpho, Northanger Abbey, Novel reading Comments closed
Mocking Adult Anxieties about Novels
“Before,” by William Hogarth (1736) What can happen to your daughters if they read novels? According to William Hogarth, something like the above. Check out the lower left hand corner where a side table is falling over. The drawer has been left casually but deliberately open so that one can see the book that is […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Before", adolescence, Child rearing, Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Novel reading, Rambler #4, Richard Sheridan, Samuel Johnson, School for Scandal, William Hogarth Comments closed
Danger: Georgian Teens Reading Novels
Samuel Johnson If we need proof that adolescence has always been a difficult age, we can look at those 18th century moralists that were panicked about young people reading novels. Of course if you’re young (to build off of a comment that Barbara makes in response to Friday’s post), part of the fun of reading […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged adolescence, censorship, Henry Fielding, Novel reading, Rambler #4, Samuel Johnson, Tom Jones Comments closed
Claims that Novels Are Bad For Teens
Jane Austen Last night I was teaching a Jane Austen class at a local retirement center and was talking about the defense of novels that appears in Northanger Abbey. Catherine, the book’s heroine, has just made a new friend in Isabella Thorpe. They go everywhere together in Bath and, when the weather is bad, meet […]
Posted in Uncategorized Comments closed
Aphra Behn, Sexual Revolutionary
Aphra Behn, by Mary Beale I am having a great deal of fun teaching Aphra Behn’s play The Rover this week. Written in 1677 during the reign of Charles II, it is a rollicking sex comedy that proved to be very popular. A woman writing for the stage was in itself extraordinary. That the play […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Anais Nin, Aphra Behn, Erica Jong, John Wilmot, Rover, sexual liberation, To a Lady in a Letter Comments closed
A Slave Novel about Race Today
Harriet Tubman, inspiration for the heroine About our “One Maryland One Book” discussion at Leonardtown Library on Thursday, I’m sorry to report that (as expected) we didn’t pull in anyone other than our book group regulars. The good news is that that group appears as solid as ever and we had a very good conversation […]
