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‘My Muse loves a little Variety’: Writing Drama and the Creative Life of Frances Burney
Author(s) -
SKINNER GILLIAN
Publication year - 2011
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.1754-0208.2011.00376.x
Subject(s) - comedy , tragedy (event) , drama , reading (process) , literature , variety (cybernetics) , creativity , character (mathematics) , key (lock) , art , sociology , philosophy , psychology , linguistics , social psychology , computer science , geometry , mathematics , computer security , artificial intelligence
This article focuses on Frances Burney's abortive career as a playwright and uses her journals and letters to examine three key points: the suppression of her first comedy, The Witlings ; the sole performance of her tragedy Edwy and Elgiva ; and the withdrawal from rehearsal of her second comedy, Love and Fashion . I argue that close reading of the journals and letters surrounding these events tells us something about the complexity with which Burney herself, and those close to her, viewed her creativity, and reveals conflicting discourses of inspiration and labour, always complicated by gender.