...Ann Campbell This essay argues that Frances Burney in Cecilia; or Memoirs of an Heiress (1782) critiques political debates and literary conventions focused on clandestine marriage. Through two plots of this novel, one economic and one focused on courtship, Burney interprets clandestine marriage...

... of action’ within each plot?,” we find four largely distinct groups: (1) villain or villainess; (2) intrigue complexities; (3) situational donné ; and (4) character display. After nearly fifteen years of plot structures driven by villains, Handel began to experiment with quite different plot designs (though...

...Nora Gilbert This essay seeks to explore the pivotal role that female rebellion, refusal, and flight played in both the rise of the novel and the rise of modern feminism. To make my case for the ideological and narratological importance of what I am referring to as the “runaway-woman plot,” I...

... to the plot, however, Zoroastro was a late addition to the libretto, created expressly for Handel's production—an addition calculated to appeal to London audiences. The image of Zoroaster (the obvious model for Zoroastro) was prevalent in London during the 1720s and 1730s, appearing prominently in popular...

...Laura J. Rosenthal While appreciating the author’s skill, critics have nevertheless characterized John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure as little more than a string of pornographic vignettes held together with the barest of plots and populated by superficial characters mechanically...

...), looking closely at the role of St. Nicholas, patron saint of gift-giving, who intervenes at crucial moments in the plot. I then reexamine Chatterton’s approach to Walpole in 1769 seeking patronage for his pseudo-medieval “Rowley” poems. Walpole’s infamous rejection stemmed in large part, I suggest, from...

...Anne Barbeau Gardiner The College of William & Mary 2001 Dryden, Bower, Castlemaine, and the Imagery of Revolution, 1682–1687 In 1683, when details of the Rye House Plot emerged, there was a sharp swing of public opinion...

... to the gentry? Moles- worth calls such events “statistical miracles,” arguing that histories based on the rise of realism in fiction focus too much on character and setting, and not enough on plot, where such miracles abound. Robinson Crusoe, Tom Jones, and Pamela are not isolated instances: plot itself...

... on (among other things) the aftermath of the political storm and legal travesty known as the Popish Plot (1678 – 80). This is a subject on which we know Luttrell dwelt for a considerable time, being a keen col- lector of Popish Plot ephemera, which, some might argue, constituted a considerable part...

... and flexible ensemble of dynamics, centered on questions of character and plot, allows Pavel to show what the novel has been for a wide array of novelists with a wide variety of aes- thetic and moral projects and rationales. The novel is not only a modern genre. Pavel’s study participates in recent...

... that they redefine themselves to accommodate worthy visitors. But as Wright shows, plots that hinge on pliable justices and ad hoc identity performances threaten to undermine privilege by casting “doubt on the belief that we can reliably differentiate between those who deserve access to the legal system,” and those...

... out to be a richly generative argument — ​that Richardson’s novel is a haunted space where careful readers intermittently detect a shadowy, mostly untold story, “the ignis fatuus plot of unsexed love” (26). This shadowy, near alternative includes among its elements both Clarissa’s abortive love...

...) Emma’s incomplete reading of Héloïse has serious consequences. Her father interrupts her perusal of the seduction plot, leaving Emma to con- template only the first volume. Nicola Watson rightly points out that because she reads only the first volume, which contains Julie’s sexual trans- gression...

... as a joke, and it would have been understood as such by his Oxford listeners. At that moment, propagandists from the emerging Whig party were busy terrifying the ­English public with rumors about a dreadful “Popish” and “Irish Plot” and, as a result, many had come to believe that an invasion...

... whereas lay readers have taken an interest in theme, plot, and character. A hierarchy has emerged: the most interesting critical questions address purely formal topics and show how formal techniques are the engine of historical change. . . . Authentic criticism . . . concerns itself...

... by a sensational murder, which was rapidly associated with the unfolding conspiracy created by Titus Oates known as the Popish Plot.21 One of the king s justices, Sir Edmond Bury Godfrey, disappeared shortly after tak- ing down Oates s evidence that there was a massive Catholic conspiracy to assassinate King...

... The Benevolent Planters, published and performed (if only twice) in 1789. In this short, musical play, the prologue promotes abolition, while the plot closes disappointingly with grateful African slaves lauding their kindly European masters. How refreshingly fair-minded is Thelwall’s notion that worthy...

... And this list excludes the many plays that allude to the novel, as well as other performance types, like the dance called “The Sancho Panza.” Several of these plays adapt not the main plot but two other tales from the novel: Middleton, Beaumont and Fletcher, Behn, Southerne, and Crowne stage the story...

... extramarital temptation plot à la Lafayette. Charrière, on the other hand, is more successful when she integrates the new ideology of a freely chosen companionate marriage with Rousseau’s “new” portrayal of marriage. Her protagonist carries the full weight of both...

... foregrounds through her marriage plots, generate audience sympathy for that agency, and establish a solid framework for promoting female arts. Everywhere, in an effort to entwine her own plays in the nation’s revered traditions, she engages Dryden-like with voices current and past to promote native...