“Far Other Times Are These”: The Bluestockings in the Time of Ossian
As early as 1761 Elizabeth Montagu, Queen of the Blues, began hold ing eccentric dinner parties, during which guests "had the feast of shells and drank out of a nautilus shell to the immortal memory of Ossian."1 In honor of Ossian, the recently rediscovered Highland bard, Montagu recreated-down to the unconventional stemware-the ceremonial meals of the Highland warriors described by Ossian's self-proclaimed translator, the controversial James Macpherson.2 Montagu even counted "the Bard Macpherson" among the "tuneful train" who attended her Highland feasts held throughout the 1760s and 1770s (Montagu to Lyttleton, 17 November 1761). A letter dated 13 February 1772 from Montagu to Elizabeth Vesey, a close friend and fellow Bluestocking, describes another "feast of shells" more than ten years later attended by Macpherson (who seems to have been a regular), Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lord Lyttleton, and the playwrights Richard Cumberland and Alexander Dow.3 Montagu's feasts are just one example of the Bluestockings' passion for Ossian, a passion that crops up repeatedly in their voluminous correspondence and, most strikingly, in Catherine Talbot's imitations of the Ossian poems. These sources also establish the Bluestockings' indifference to the raging debates over the poems' authenticity, a subject to which much recent criticism has been devoted.4 In fact, in a letter to Lord Lyttleton, 31 October 1760, Montagu made light of the forgery accusations leveled at Macpherson soon after the initial publication of the Fragments of Ancient Poetry in 1760: "The Bishop of Ossory tells me Mr. Macpherson receives 100 per annum subscription while he stays in the Highlands to translate the poems; if he is writing them, he should have a thousand at least" (II, 211). The significance of the Ossian poems for Montagu and her fellow Bluestockings did not lie in their historical accuracy or ancient author ship, but rather in their egalitarian vision of gender. In many ways, the Ossian poems provided a template for Bluestocking salons, where both sexes debated issues of literary, social, and political interest. Although the term Bluestocking typically conjures the image of a socially awkward learned lady, whose devotion to study and the betterment of the female condition make her poorly suited for her domestic duties, this understand ing of the term did not emerge until the late eighteenth century. Among
“Never Was a Flock So Scattered for Want of a Shepherdess”: Elizabeth Vesey Between England and Ireland
In this elaborately polite letter from November 1771, Elizabeth Carter explicitly praises the many Irish women who resided in England during the late-eighteenth century, bringing with them both “sense” and “virtue.” These women “flourished” in England as well of course as in Ireland where their sense and virtue had been originally fostered and where they still occasionally resided. Many of Ireland’s aristocracy and gentry spent much of their time between the two countries, passing up to 18 months in England and then returning to Dublin for six months or more during the parliamentary season, thus contributing to the societies of both countries.2 One such woman who passed her time between the two countries was the Bluestocking hostess Elizabeth Vesey (c. 1715–1791), the recipient of Carter’s letter and praise.
Modern Romance and Transformations of the Novel: The Gothic, Scott, Dickens
Introduction: fiction as fiction 1. The culture of Gothic 2. The romance of subjection: Scott's Waverley 3. The suspension of belief 4. Scott and Dickens: the work of the author 5. Scott and Dickens: the end of history Endnotes.