Eliza's Disposition: Freedom, Pleasure, and Sentimental Fiction

[...]how does the novel critique various meanings of freedom, including those expressed in both liberalism and republicanism? Caught in these questions, Foster's characters struggle to define freedom either as the pleasure of free association and multiple options or as the ability to love virtu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Early American literature 2016-03, Vol.51 (2), p.297-331
Main Author: VAN ENGEN, ABRAM
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
18th century
Aesthetics
Analysis
Calvinism
Christianity
Conventions
Criticism and interpretation
Disposition (Philosophy)
Fiction
Foster, Hannah Webster
Foster, Hannah Webster (1759-1840)
Free association
Free will
Freedom
Freedom of choice
Liberalism
Liberty
Novelists
Novels
Personality
Pleasure
Reading
Religion
Theology
Traditions
Citations: Items that cite this one
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Summary:[...]how does the novel critique various meanings of freedom, including those expressed in both liberalism and republicanism? Caught in these questions, Foster's characters struggle to define freedom either as the pleasure of free association and multiple options or as the ability to love virtue by finding delight in what is right.\n She continues: "While the effects of reading a conduct book and those of reading a novel would designedly be different, those effects nonetheless exploit the same potential, in which powerful books and impressionable readers combine to produce predictable, standardized effects" (727).
ISSN:0012-8163
1534-147X
1534-147X
DOI:10.1353/eal.2016.0022