Coulombeau, Sophie Marie (2018) 'A Philosophical Gossip':Science and sociability in Frances Burney's Cecilia. Eighteenth-Century Life. pp. 73-93. ISSN 0098-2601
Abstract
In Frances Burney’s second novel, Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress (1782), the social taxonomist Mr. Gosport educates the protagonist in the ways of the bon ton by applying classificatory principles to metropolitan polite society. This article argues that Gosport’s methodology derives principally from the discourse of Linnaean taxonomy, with which Burney was familiar primarily through the personal tutelage of the botanist Daniel Solander (a social acquaintance of her father Charles, and a professional contact of her brother James). Ultimately, taxonomic discourse supplied Burney with a vocabulary with which to express anxieties about her place in an increasingly stratified and hierarchized print marketplace. Her eventual rejection of taxonomic sociability in Cecilia replicates her resistance to literary classification, and points towards a desire to be accounted, as she wrote to her sister Susan, “quelque chose extraordinaire.”
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 Duke University Press. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (York) > English and Related Literature (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 21 Jan 2020 11:50 |
Last Modified: | 16 Oct 2024 16:21 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1215/00982601-4384553 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1215/00982601-4384553 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:155852 |
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Description: Coulombeau, Sophie 2018. 'A Philosophical Gossip'- Science and sociability in Frances Burney's Cecilia. Eighteenth-Century Life 42 (2) , pp. 73-93. 10.1215_00982601-4384553