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Performing Gender in Augustan Criticism and Pope's To a Lady
Author(s) -
JONES TOM
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal for eighteenth‐century studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.129
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1754-0208
pISSN - 1754-0194
DOI - 10.1111/j.1754-0208.2009.00099.x
Subject(s) - criticism , virtue , literary criticism , order (exchange) , poetry , reading (process) , value (mathematics) , literature , period (music) , sociological criticism , close reading , literary science , gender studies , sociology , art , philosophy , aesthetics , epistemology , linguistics , finance , machine learning , computer science , economics
This piece explores the performance of gender in literary criticism of the period 1660‐1740 and in Pope's To A Lady . Arguing that the use of gendered terms in literary criticism is part of the performance of gender, the essay draws on Judith Butler's work. The essay traces the use of explicitly and implicitly gendered terms in literary criticism in order to suggest the gender value assigned to particular technical aspects of verse. The essay closes with a reading of To a Lady which argues that the poem explores the relationship between the ideas of female inconstancy and male artistic virtue.