Open AccessBlackness and Identity in Sarah Harriet Burney’s Geraldine Fauconberg (1808) and Traits of Nature (1812)
Author(s) -
Carmen María Fernández Rodríguez
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
es review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2531-1654
pISSN - 2531-1646
DOI - 10.24197/ersjes.39.2018.97-115
Subject(s) - oppression , portrait , identity (music) , criticism , sister , art history , art , literature , history , sociology , genealogy , anthropology , aesthetics , law , politics , political science
One of the latest rediscoveries within the field of the Burney Studies is the oeuvre of Frances Burney’s half-sister, Sarah Harriet Burney, who also was a famous novelist during her lifetime. This paper focuses on two black characters in Geraldine Fauconberg (1808) and Traits of Nature (1812). By using a gender and postcolonial criticism, I analyze Sarah Harriet’s portrait of blackness and how this author approached the marginalization of the blacks in early nineteenth-century Britain, which is closely related to the oppression suffered by the heroines in her works.