Reading Overview for Tuesday, July 13

Assigned Texts: Lady Montagu, Preface, Letters X, XII, XXV, XXVI, XXIX, XXXIII (pdf of selected letters available here); Frances Burney, The Journal and Letters (NA 1350-61)

Starting today, we take a short break from the fictional prose that has comprised much of our reading thus far this term and concentrate on nonfiction forms of letters and diaries today and poetry tomorrow. Note that the assigned letters from Montagu have been cut from the original assignment given in the syllabus.

About Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Turkish Embassy Letters

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu grew up in a wealthy and intellectual family in London, where she was well educated and extremely independent. She married her husband, Edward Wortley Montagu for love, which for many women of the period was unusual. When her husband took a position as ambassador to Constantinople in 1716, she traveled with him across Europe and through Turkey, writing letters to family and friends that were later collected into her Turkish Embassy Letters. The picture to the right is Montagu dressed in the Turkish style. Montagu was particularly impressed with the Turkish inoculations for small pox and brought this scientific information back to England, where her children were some of the first to be vaccinated for the disease. Her interest in preventing small pox was because Montagu survived the disease in 1715 and worked to cover her scars with makeup. Montagu also wrote essays and poems (two of which are included in the NA on pages 1198-1201) and was criticized by some of her male contemporaries for her work. Though the letters included in the Turkish Embassy Letters were originally written for selected recipients, she later compiled and edited them into the collection that was published after her death.

About Frances Burney and The Journal and Letters

Frances (or Fanny as she was often called) Burney also grew up in an intellectual London family but later in the 18th century. During her lifetime, Burney was widely known for her novels, which were first published anonymously. She lived as a lady-in-waiting at court for five years, and at 41 years old, she married a French general. During a visit to France in 1802, the Napoleonic wars broke out, and Burney and her family were trapped there for a decade.

Burney composed the first three journal entries included in the NA during her younger years (at ages 15, 25, and 37, respectively) while she was living in England. The fourth excerpt is from a letter Burney wrote while she was living in France in 1812 and faced breast cancer. I want to warn you that the letter is rather graphic in its detail about her mastectomy, performed by military doctors with no anesthesia. The letter is addressed to her sister Esther (but as Burney notes, she expects Esther to share it with family and friends) and was composed months after the surgery because Burney struggled to relive the horrifying experience in writing. The final two paragraphs are written by Burney’s husband M. d’Arblay about the experience.

Questions for Thinking and Discussion

• Thinking back to our readings of Oroonoko and Gulliver’s Travels, how are Lady Montagu’s letters similar to those accounts of travel? How are they different?
• Montagu’s letters describe the dress and fashion of those in both Vienna and Constantinople. How do the physical bodies of women and the fashions covering them demonstrate the place of women in the two cultures? How do they compare with England?
• Burney’s mastectomy letters takes up the issue of the body in a different way than we have considered so far in the course. How does she represent the diseased body?