The Mirroring of Self in Charlotte Smith’s Elegiac Sonnets and The Old Manor House
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Lin, Mei-Ying
Abstract
This thesis proposes a cross-genre study of Charlotte Smith’s Elegiac Sonnets and The Old Manor House to analyze their similitude and inter-referentiality. Most critics tend to separate Smith’s sonnets from her novels, while a cross-genre comparison offers a possibility to examine the author’s construction of subjectivity, which is fluid and volatile. By investigating this challenge against generic boundaries, this study aims to argue for Smith’s subversive proto-feminist stance, a notion foregrounded in Judith Pascoe’s Romantic Theatricality: Gender, Poetry, and Spectatorship. Charlotte Smith is a highly self-aware writer who skilfully manipulates multiple images, voices, and characters to shape a persona saturated with her own feelings and sentiments. In the Elegiac Sonnets, an image of a forlorn and suffering woman is portrayed through numerous roles, among which the depiction of a Gothic heroine resonates with Smith’s Gothic romance The Old Manor House. Similarly, in the novel, the hero Orlando is imbued with a melancholic hue not far from that of the “weeping Charlotte” performed and publicized in both the sonnets and its preface. This deployment of the mirroring symmetry of persona-making, as well as the mix of generic conventions, helps to reveal Smith’s exploration of selfhood and her questioning of the patriarchal traditions.
Subjects
Charlotte Smith
the Elegiac Sonnets
The Old Manor House
mirroring
feminism
SDGs
Type
thesis
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