Women and Politeness in Eighteenth-Century England: Bodies, Identities, and Power

by Soile Ylivuori

Overview

This first in-depth study of women’s politeness examines the complex relationship individuals had with the discursive ideals of polite femininity. Contextualising women’s autobiographical writings (journals and letters) with a wide range of eighteenth-century printed didactic material, it analyses the tensions between politeness discourse which aimed to regulate acceptable feminine identities and women’s possibilities to resist this disciplinary regime. Ylivuori focuses on the central role the female body played as both the means through which individuals actively fashioned themselves as polite and feminine, and the supposedly truthful expression of their inner status of polite femininity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367584252
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/30/2020
Series:	Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Cultures and Societies
Pages:	308
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Soile Ylivuori is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. Framing the Stage: Politeness and the Body 2. Gendered Politeness and Power 3. Hypocrisy and Strategic Dissimulation 4. Playing with Public and Private 5. Multiple Identities 6. Discipline and Subversion. Epilogue