"I shall leave my reader to Judge": The Female Spectator as an Interpretive Model for The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless.
This essay argues that Eliza Haywood's The Female Spectator (1744-46) models dialogic exchange through its representation of a collaborative process of production and engagement with readers' responses, and that attending to exchanges in the periodical about dress and the clothing industry, in parti...
| Publicado en: | Eighteenth Century Fiction Vol. 37; no. 4; pp. 667 - 688 |
|---|---|
| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
University of Toronto Press
Oct2025
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=192157587&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 192157587 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 08406286 7SD jtl: Eighteenth Century Fiction issn: 08406286 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Oct2025 vid: 37 iid: 4 pid: 678 pub: University of Toronto Press artinfo: ui: 192157587 10.3138/ecf.2024-0048 ppf: 667 ppct: 21 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 310KB tig: atl: "I shall leave my reader to Judge": The Female Spectator as an Interpretive Model for The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless. aug: au: Crone-Romanovski, Mary su: Female Spectator, The (Book) History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless, The (Book) Clothing industry Consumerism Eighteenth century sug: subj: Female Spectator, The (Book) History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless, The (Book) Clothing industry Consumerism Eighteenth century ab: This essay argues that Eliza Haywood's The Female Spectator (1744-46) models dialogic exchange through its representation of a collaborative process of production and engagement with readers' responses, and that attending to exchanges in the periodical about dress and the clothing industry, in particular, reveals how the periodical creates an interpretive model for the protagonist's engagement with the clothing industry in The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751). The author demonstrates that applying the periodical's interpretive model to the novel provides an alternative to a straightforward reading of the novel, producing a counter-reading that critiques not only the narrator's maxims but standard representations of women's attention to dress more broadly. Understanding The Female Spectator as a model for reading Betsy Thoughtless illuminates the relationship between formal innovation and changing reading practices in an expanding literary marketplace and contributes to the bourgeoning critical discussion of eighteenth-century consumerism. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Eighteenth Century Fiction is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Eighteenth Century Fiction holder: University of Toronto Press dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|