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Humor in Life and Letters
Laughing Feminism: Subversive Comedy in Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen
Book by Bilger, Audrey
261 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 3, 2019
It always seems a dubious enterprise to reinterpret the art of an earlier era in the context of modern ideas. The term feminism did not exist in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries so far as I am aware, leaving me with doubts about applying it to the novels of Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen. On the other hand, few have qualms about applying the term to their contemporary, Mary Wollstonecraft, whose explicit arguments in favor of the rights of women are justly famous. It quickly became clear, however, Audrey Bilger is merely applying the label to an existing strain of Enlightenment-era (and even earlier) thought, not asking these authors to embrace feminism in its present form, and on that basis I cut her some slack. Once I did, I was impressed by Bilger’s arguments and happy to see these novels in a fresh light.
Laughing Feminism is at least as much about laughing as it is about feminism, and Bilger’s insights into the comedy of Burney, Austen, and Edgeworth are enlightening. She situates their humor about men, women, and gender relations in the context of contemporaneous British arguments surrounding women’s behavior and place in society. When Elizabeth Bennet, for instance, says “I dearly love a laugh” and immediately qualifies her claim by saying that she hopes she never ridicules what is wise and good, she is holding a dialogue with the conduct books prevalent in her day, which urge women never to laugh immoderately or to mock others, especially men; and with the misogynistic drama Austen grew up reading and seeing on the London stage, which depicted witty women as harpies.
Successive chapters in Bilger’s book break down elements of these authors’ humor into private versus public jokes, comedy based on normative expectations for women’s behavior, laughter at the expense of men, laughter at the expense of women, and what Bilger calls “violent comedy” (most prevalent in Burney’s novels). Each category throws light on particular characters and incidents, and Bilger does a good job of showing how these elements of the authors’ fictions fit into the wider societal debate about the rights of women (or lack thereof) and how inequality between the sexes distorts society and deforms the characters of men and women alike.
A term that recurs throughout is “rational creatures”: the prevailing feminist argument of the day was that as long as society fails to recognize that women are as rational as men, no one shall be free. The novels of Burney, Edgeworth, and Austen, Bilger argues, are sustained commentaries on this theme, delivered through the vehicle of entertainment. I found her ideas convincing.
Laughing Feminism is at least as much about laughing as it is about feminism, and Bilger’s insights into the comedy of Burney, Austen, and Edgeworth are enlightening. She situates their humor about men, women, and gender relations in the context of contemporaneous British arguments surrounding women’s behavior and place in society. When Elizabeth Bennet, for instance, says “I dearly love a laugh” and immediately qualifies her claim by saying that she hopes she never ridicules what is wise and good, she is holding a dialogue with the conduct books prevalent in her day, which urge women never to laugh immoderately or to mock others, especially men; and with the misogynistic drama Austen grew up reading and seeing on the London stage, which depicted witty women as harpies.
Successive chapters in Bilger’s book break down elements of these authors’ humor into private versus public jokes, comedy based on normative expectations for women’s behavior, laughter at the expense of men, laughter at the expense of women, and what Bilger calls “violent comedy” (most prevalent in Burney’s novels). Each category throws light on particular characters and incidents, and Bilger does a good job of showing how these elements of the authors’ fictions fit into the wider societal debate about the rights of women (or lack thereof) and how inequality between the sexes distorts society and deforms the characters of men and women alike.
A term that recurs throughout is “rational creatures”: the prevailing feminist argument of the day was that as long as society fails to recognize that women are as rational as men, no one shall be free. The novels of Burney, Edgeworth, and Austen, Bilger argues, are sustained commentaries on this theme, delivered through the vehicle of entertainment. I found her ideas convincing.
January 3, 2016
I've had the pleasure of reviewing this book: Looser, Devoney. Rev. of Laughing Feminism: Subversive Comedy in Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen, by Audrey Bilger. Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature 47 (1999): 238–42. Print.
May 24, 2008
If only I had known about this book five years ago when I took a class on Austen's novels...
This is a wonderful, insightful, well-researched study of female laughter and comedy in Burney's, Edgeworth's, and Austen's works. It puts into context what would have been the works of eighteenth-century "feminist" writers (were the term used then) and how they combated sexism and patriarchy in British society during that time period. It evokes the criticism of Wollstonecraft, Woolf, Cixous, Gilbert and Gubar, and other respected writers in showing how laughter and comedy was used because it was the only way in which these female writers could publish what they felt about their male-dominated society. It brings up the codes and methods used to subvert their actual messages, and also how they were actually misread by men who enjoyed them. It also compares the novels to the "conduct books" that were popular during this time period, and how Burney's, Edgeworth's, and Austen's work obviously juxtaposed those messages by making fun of and inverting them in their own novels.
The criticism cited consists of not just Feminist but also Marxist and Bahktinian theories to support the "true" but concealed feminist messages within the novels mentioned (which, I believe, included all of Austen's, including her Juvenalia stories, as well as Burney's and Edgeworth's), and holds it all up against the (good and bad) criticism these writers received during their own lifetimes.
Well-rounded and including footnotes, numerous resources, and a detailed index, Laughing Feminism is invaluable for both the formal scholar as well as the general reader of eighteenth-century writers and those interested in feminist interpretations of literature.
This is a wonderful, insightful, well-researched study of female laughter and comedy in Burney's, Edgeworth's, and Austen's works. It puts into context what would have been the works of eighteenth-century "feminist" writers (were the term used then) and how they combated sexism and patriarchy in British society during that time period. It evokes the criticism of Wollstonecraft, Woolf, Cixous, Gilbert and Gubar, and other respected writers in showing how laughter and comedy was used because it was the only way in which these female writers could publish what they felt about their male-dominated society. It brings up the codes and methods used to subvert their actual messages, and also how they were actually misread by men who enjoyed them. It also compares the novels to the "conduct books" that were popular during this time period, and how Burney's, Edgeworth's, and Austen's work obviously juxtaposed those messages by making fun of and inverting them in their own novels.
The criticism cited consists of not just Feminist but also Marxist and Bahktinian theories to support the "true" but concealed feminist messages within the novels mentioned (which, I believe, included all of Austen's, including her Juvenalia stories, as well as Burney's and Edgeworth's), and holds it all up against the (good and bad) criticism these writers received during their own lifetimes.
Well-rounded and including footnotes, numerous resources, and a detailed index, Laughing Feminism is invaluable for both the formal scholar as well as the general reader of eighteenth-century writers and those interested in feminist interpretations of literature.
October 10, 2010
Super interesting; probably even better if you've read Burney and Edgeworth instead of just Austen like I had.
August 9, 2016
Totally academic, yet somehow riveting. Although perhaps the author referring to the character Wickham from Pride & Prejudice as “Wickfield” may throw all her arguments into question.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews