Laughing Feminism: Subversive Comedy in Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen

Humor in Life and Letters

by Audrey Bilger

Laughing Feminism focuses on comedy in the works of Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen, authors who scrutinized the subjected prejudices against women in order to expose their absurdity and encourage readers to laugh at the folly of sexist views. Audrey Bilger shows that these women writers employed a full arsenal of comic weapons such as satire, burlesque, and parody to combat patriarchal nonsense and make comedy out of the discrepancies between the myth and reality of womanhood. Bilger draws on current feminist criticism, comic theory, and the methodologies of literary history to provide a context for re-assessing the novels of these writers. At a time when overt feminist statements could ruin a woman's reputation, comedy enabled these authors to smuggle feminism into their writing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Jane Austen, Literary Criticism

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Abigail Bok · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Devoney Looser · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

18世纪的文化语境里，笑逐渐被纳入 reason / emotion、self-control / excess 的二分法。理想的中产阶级女性尤其需要保持 decorum、modesty、self-restraint，因此女性失控的大笑、嘲弄、喧闹并不只是不淑女，而是在挑战 domestic order。所以作者最开始讨论的是为什么女性的笑会被认为具有威胁性，笑意味着暂时失去控制，而女性应该被控制本身就是父权秩序的一部分。

到了女性主义幽默这里，重点从 woman laughs 转向 women laugh together。女性在男性主导的社会中共享大量无法公开表达的经验，因此在女性群体内部形成一种自己的编码。女性拿男性、婚姻、家庭、性别规范开玩笑，让我想到现在很多女性脱口秀创作者，她们的素材同样来自社会对女性施加的种种限制，女性的幽默可以形成一种 female solidarity。

而在18世纪，女性作家显然面临着更多限制。她们很难让理想女性角色直接做出过于逾越的言行，最直接的方式就是通过描写把 male supremacy 当作理所当然的滑稽角色，让男性权威本身变得可笑。这里非常惊喜地看到 Burney 和 Allen 的通信里已经出现了某种非常接近第二波rf/lf作家创作的构想，关于全女社会以及性倒转的社会……

接下来更进一步的讨论也是一个非常贴近现代女性群体内部的议题，女性为什么也会成为女性喜剧的讽刺对象？Hays 的例子很具体，criticizing female behavior ≠ condemning female nature。这也是女性作家特别困难的地方。她既需要作为friend / equal，也需要作为instructor / critic，在批判与共情之间把握微妙的平衡。女作家根本无法完全站在女性之外，因为她自己同样处在这样社会结构里。批评与讽刺中也包含她们的行为会不会反过来损害所有女性的意识。

这部分太过应景……现在的诸多争论依然有着类似的路径“你批评我就是厌女”。当然，对个体的批评容易滑向厌女的情况确实存在，尤其当被批评的对象本身是长期处于从属地位的群体时，批评一个具体的行为，和否定这个群体之间的边界就会变得非常微妙。这也是 Hays 必须反复强调自己是出于 benevolence，是以朋友和平等者的身份提出建议的原因。她需要证明自己并不是在说女人就是如此，而是在说女人本可以不必如此。写到这里感觉好想笑又有点心酸，这些字眼在互联网已经看过了太多，没想到两百多年前的女性作者已经在为同样的问题小心翼翼地措辞……时代当然变了，但女性在批判彼此时需要不断证明自己的立场、动机与善意这一困境，好像并没有真的消失。

看完有点不舍，那些几百年前的共振让我在一代代浪潮里感受到一些温暖。会发现有些问题并没有随着时代彻底消失，有些困境甚至依然熟悉，但更多还是感动于这些珍贵的集体记忆与经验……

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super interesting; probably even better if you've read Burney and Edgeworth instead of just Austen like I had.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.