Welcome to Arabella's Romances
About this Project
Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote is increasingly read as an example of the early British novel in college literature courses and in scholarship on the 18th century. However, one of the central devices of the novel, Arabella’s constant reference to seventeenth-century French Romances, may be lost on students, and even scholars, due to a lack of familiarity with this particular genre that Lennox's eighteenth-century readers would have had.
A knowledge of the romances Arabella reads yields much valuable contextual information, which helps the reader understand the references and how they effect the plot. Additionally, focusing on how Arabella uses these romances allows a better understanding of her, as a character. Whereas an unfamiliarity with the genre of the popular seventeenth-century French romance may make Arabella's "knowledge" seem obscure and unimportant, realizing what Arabella gets out of these romances helps the reader appreciate the full force of the alternative world she creates for herself, and how this world allows for a kind of female agency not considered socially acceptable in eighteenth-century Britain.
With these benefits in mind, this project is designed to serve as a resource for those unfamiliar with the seventeenth-century French romances Arabella repeatedly invokes, particularly those of Madeleine de Scudery and Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède. Provided here are summaries of the major romances referenced within the novel, critical commentary, and other historical information pertaining to the works themselves and their authors. A description of the historical romance genre to which these texts belong is also included.
This project further provides a “Conclusions” section comprised of close readings of references to the romances and analysis of the novel based on connections made between Arabella’s commentary on romances and the context of the romances themselves. Through making information on these French romances available and accessible, it is our hope that the thematic complexities of The Female Quixote are magnified and the significance of Arabella’s devotion to romance is fully realized.
For the purpose of consistency, we have used the spellings used in Lennox's novel on this site, unless quoting directly from a source that uses a different spelling.
A knowledge of the romances Arabella reads yields much valuable contextual information, which helps the reader understand the references and how they effect the plot. Additionally, focusing on how Arabella uses these romances allows a better understanding of her, as a character. Whereas an unfamiliarity with the genre of the popular seventeenth-century French romance may make Arabella's "knowledge" seem obscure and unimportant, realizing what Arabella gets out of these romances helps the reader appreciate the full force of the alternative world she creates for herself, and how this world allows for a kind of female agency not considered socially acceptable in eighteenth-century Britain.
With these benefits in mind, this project is designed to serve as a resource for those unfamiliar with the seventeenth-century French romances Arabella repeatedly invokes, particularly those of Madeleine de Scudery and Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède. Provided here are summaries of the major romances referenced within the novel, critical commentary, and other historical information pertaining to the works themselves and their authors. A description of the historical romance genre to which these texts belong is also included.
This project further provides a “Conclusions” section comprised of close readings of references to the romances and analysis of the novel based on connections made between Arabella’s commentary on romances and the context of the romances themselves. Through making information on these French romances available and accessible, it is our hope that the thematic complexities of The Female Quixote are magnified and the significance of Arabella’s devotion to romance is fully realized.
For the purpose of consistency, we have used the spellings used in Lennox's novel on this site, unless quoting directly from a source that uses a different spelling.
Click on a title to learn more about the text
The links at the top of the page provide more information about Lennox's novel, the tradition of the French historical romance, the individual romances, the authors, and our conclusions about the use of romance in The Female Quixote.
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