Literary Theory Assignment and Othello

"Out Rushed a Female to Protect the Bard": The Bluestocking Defense of Shakespeare Author(s): Elizabeth Eger Source: Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 1/2, Reconsidering the Bluestockings (2002), pp. 127-151 Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3817734 Accessed: 01-12-2018 16:57 UTC

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"Out rushed a female to protect the Bard":

The Bluestocking Defense of Shakespeare

ELIZABETH EGER

SOME ladies indeed have shewn a truly public Spirit in rescuing the ad-

mirable, yet almost forgotten Shakespear, from being totally sunk in

oblivion: -they have generously contributed to raise a monument to

his memory, and frequently honoured his works with their presence on

the stage: -an action, which deserves the highest encomiums, and will

be attended with an adequate reward; since, in preserving the fame of

the dead bard, they add a brightness to their own, which will shine to

late posterity.

- Eliza Haywood, The Female Spectator

E liza Haywood's tribute to "some ladies" provides the twentieth-first-century

literary scholar with a striking example of a reversal of roles.' Here we find

a male writer being rescued from oblivion-one who today is the undis-

puted symbol of excellence at the heart of the canon of English literature, a sta-

ple ingredient in all curricula. It is hard to envisage a time when his reputation

was not yet formed or to imagine that the work of a group of ladies was neces-

sary to defend his cause. While Haywood may have been exaggerating in de- scribing Shakespeare as on the point of sinking into oblivion, it is certain that the

Shakespeare Ladies' Club did much to promote his work at an opportune mo- ment in the history of his reputation. Formed in the late months of 1736, this

I would like to thank the Huntington Library for the award of a Michael J. Connell Foundation Fellowship in

the spring of oo2001 and I am extremely grateful to the librarians and staff for their help during the three months

I spent reading the Montagu correspondence. I would also like to thank Felicity Nussbaum and Roy Ritchie for

organizing the memorable Bluestocking Conference held at the Huntington in April oo2001; Nicole Pohl, Betty

Schellenberg, and Susan Green for their editorial wisdom and support; Nick Harrison for his extremely helpful

readings of this essay; and all those who participated in seminars at the University of Warwick Eighteenth

Century Centre, the Feminism and Enlightenment Project, and the Romantic Seminar at the University of Chicago, where earlier versions of this essay were read and discussed.

i. The Female Spectator quoted in Michael Dobson, The Making ofa National Poet: Shakespeare, Adaptation, andAuthorship (Oxford, 1992), 197.

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iz8 ELIZABETH EGER

group of women was concerned to encourage London's theatrical managers to give Shakespeare a greater share in their repertories.2 Haywood's optimistic prophecy that these ladies would enjoy "adequate reward" for their labors in the glories of posterity has unfortunately proved mistaken. Women's contribution

to "preserving the dead bard" has largely been forgotten, despite their often pio-

neering role as agents of change in the history of his reputation.3

As early as 1753 Arthur Murphy commented, "With us islanders Shakespeare

is a kind of established religion in poetry,"4 and by the beginning of the nine-

teenth century a knowledge and love of Shakespeare was considered integral to

the English character, a definitive aspect of national identity. In Jane Austen's

Mansfield Park (1814), for example, Henry Crawford's facility with Shakespeare

proves his most attractive attribute in the eyes of the pure-hearted Fanny. He

refers to the bard as "part of an Englishman's constitution.... His thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them everywhere, one is intimate

with him by instinct."5 Austen's description reveals the degree to which critics and

theater managers of the previous century had been successful in cultivating a taste for his "natural genius" and "impetuous poetry."

Modern critics have often addressed the eighteenth-century revival of Shake-

speare's reputation through reference to the developing phenomenon of textual

revision and adaptation as well as the dramatic trends of the English stage.6 Two

recent studies of the creation of Shakespeare's reputation as a national poet in

the eighteenth century refer fleetingly to women's role in spreading "his thoughts

and beauties."7 However, as critics, patrons, and readers of his work, women

were strongly associated with Shakespeare during the eighteenth century, the pe-

2. Emmett L. Avery, "The Shakespeare Ladies Club," Shakespeare Quarterly 7 (1956): 153-58. 3. Feminist literary critics have started to explore women writers' responses to his work in terms of their

processes of "re-vision." See Marianne Novy, ed., Women's Re-visions of Shakespeare: On the Responses of

Dickinson, Woolf, Rich, H.D., George Eliot, and Others (Urbana and Chicago, 1990); and her Cross-Cultural

Performances: Differences in Women's Re-visions of Shakespeare (Urbana and Chicago, 1993); Judith Hawley,

"Shakespearean Sensibilities: Women Writers Reading Shakespeare, 1753-1808," in Joan Batchelor, Tom

Cain, and Claire Lamont, eds., Shakespearean Continuities: Essays in Honour ofE. A. J. Honigman (London, 1997), 290-304.

4. Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, Volume 4, 1753-1765, ed. Brian Vickers (London and Boston, 1976), 1. 5. Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (London, 1988), 335.

6. See Simon Jarvis, Scholars and Gentlemen: Shakespearean Textual Criticism and Representations of Scholarly

Labour, 1725-1765 (Oxford, 1995); Fred Parker, Johnson's Shakespeare (Oxford, 1989); Magreta De Grazia,

Shakespeare Verbatim: The Reproduction ofAuthenticity and the 179os Apparatus (Oxford, 1991); and

Dobson, Shakespeare, Adaptation, andAuthorship.

7. Jonathan Bate, Shakespearean Constitutions: Politics, Theatre, Criticism, 1730-1830 (Oxford, 1989); and Gary Taylor, Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural Historyfrom the Restoration to the Present (London, 1990).

128 lz ELIZABETH EGER

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THE BLUESTOCKING DEFENSE OF SHAKESPEARE

riod in which his identity as hero of the national literary pantheon was first es-

tablished.8 While many contemporary critics have been concerned to add women's writing to an existing canon of literature by men, few have considered

women's role in forming that canon at its first inception or acknowledged their

active critical presence as a historical fact that must be relearned. By considering

the qualities in Shakespeare's writings that appealed to women critics (or repelled

them), one can not only learn a great deal about their professional literary inter-

ests and allegiances but also form a richer and more nuanced picture of a period

in which women's cultural ascendancy coincided with the formation of the lit- erary canon.

This essay will focus on Elizabeth Montagu's Essay on the Writings and Genius

of Shakespear, Compared with the Greek and French Dramatic Poets: With Some

Remarks upon the Misrepresentations ofMons. de Voltaire (London, 1769), drawing

comparisons with Elizabeth Griffith's The Morality of Shakespeare's Drama Illus-

trated (London, 1775). Montagu and Griffith of course appear among the group

of women portrayed in Richard Samuel's painting The Nine Living Muses of Great

Britain (1779), an image frequently used in recent years to demonstrate the cul-

tural importance of Bluestocking activity to the British nation (and reproduced in

this volume on page 62).9 In a less well known celebration of female achievement,

The Female Geniad (1791), the thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Ogilvie Benger specif-

ically linked Montagu and Griffith as "female champions" of Shakespeare's cause:

Well might great Shakespeare crowns of triumph wear,

When female champions in his cause appear; E'en nature's bard's indebted to their aid,

They gleam'd resplendent o'er his hoary shade:

And whilst they his reviving laurels wreath'd,

On both the spirit of the poet breath'd:

Let then their mem'ries in ne'er fading bloom,

Immortal flourish on their Shakespeare's tomb.'°

Like Eliza Haywood before her, the precocious Benger celebrated the interdepen-

dent relation between "nature's bard" and the Bluestocking critics. Her heroines

included Elizabeth Carter, Anna Barbauld, Angelica Kauffman, Charlotte Smith,

8. See Ann Thompson and Sasha Roberts, eds., Women Reading Shakespeare, 160o-1900: An Anthology of Criticism (Manchester and New York, 1997).

9. See Elizabeth Eger, "Representing Culture: The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain, 1779," in Elizabeth

Eger, Charlotte Grant, Cliona O'Gallchoir, and Penny Warburton, eds., Women, Writing, and the Public Sphere, 170o-183o (Cambridge, zoo2001), 104-32.

1o. Elizabeth Ogilvie Benger, The Female Geniad (London, 1791), canto 3, pp. 44-45.

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130 ELIZABETH EGER

and Charlotte Lennox.1" Her sense of pride in her countrywomen unites them

in their cultural mission, eliding differences in their critical approaches. Her at-

titude was in fact typical of contemporary interest in female literary activity,

which often expressed ideas of national identity in complex and perplexing ways,

as Harriet Guest has recently suggested in her illuminating and subtle study of women, learning, and patriotism in the period.'2 National interest in Shakespeare's genius provided female critics with an opportunity to gain a pub-

lic platform not only for "female genius" but also for questions of gender and lit-

erary authority related to the place and future of women in society. In considering

the dialectical relationship between Shakespeare's cultural authority and Blue-

stocking critical authority, I will consider not only how women positioned them-

selves in relation to masculine literary models of their own and previous eras but

also how the Bluestockings made a distinctively feminine contribution to a crit-

ical tradition that focused on Shakespeare's powers of characterization and his

status as a poet of the vernacular. Montagu's and Griffith's work paved the way

for an emerging critical association between Shakespeare and national identity

that was to gain strength and dominate literary criticism in the Romantic period

and beyond.

1. Lennox was also a Shakespeare critic, of course. Her Shakespear Illustrated (1753-54) presented, for the first

time, translations of Shakespeare's sources in French and Italian romances. Unlike her successors Montagu

and Griffith, Lennox found Shakespeare inadequate in relation to his literary models, arguing that he was

lacking in invention and originality. Her negative attitude to Shakespeare proved extremely unpopular in

her lifetime, damaging her own reputation as a playwright, but her unusual stance, which presents a thinly

veiled defense of the feminine genre of romance literature (and by extension, the novel), has proved of

great interest recently. See Margaret Anne Doody, "Shakespeare's Novels: Charlotte Lennox Illustrated,"

Studies in the Novel 19 (1987): 296-310. For a reading of Lennox's text in terms of Kristevas theory of

abjection, see Susan Green, "A Cultural Reading of Charlotte Lennox's Shakespear Illustrated," in

J. Douglas Canfield and Deborah C. Payne, eds., Cultural Readings ofRestoration and Eighteenth-Century

English Theatre (Athens and London, 1995), 221. See Jonathan Brody Kramnick, Making the English

Canon: Print-Capitalism and the Cultural Past, 1700-1770 (Cambridge, 1998), 115-29, for a discussion of

Lennox's Shakespear Illustrated in relation to Enlightenment debates about the relative literary value of the

novel and Shakespeare's drama.

In The Female Geniad Benger described Lennox's "penetration" and her ability to "prune" Shakespeare's "flowers" in the following enthusiastic terms:

We thank great Shakespeare for his pleasing faults!

Since these employ'd a female critic's thoughts.

Long had proud man with an usurping pride,

The right of judgment to our sex denied;

But now no longer can exclude our claim;

Which finds protection in a Lennox's name

Nor more presume our just demand to slight,

When female genius beams such radiant light. (Canto 3, pp. 47-48)

12. Harriet Guest, Small Change: Women, Learning, Patriotism, 1750-1810 (Chicago, 2000).

ELIZABETH EGER 130 o

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THE BLUESTOCKING DEFENSE OF SHAKESPEARE

FEMALE CHAMPIONS: WOMEN, SHAKESPEARE, AND CRITICAL AUTHORITY

Elizabeth Montagu's Essay on the Writings and Genius ofShakespear was first pub-

lished, anonymously, by Dodsley in 1769. The run of a thousand copies quickly

sold out. The Essay is a patriotic defense of Shakespeare and his English admir-

ers that argues for his originality and natural genius. The work is exceptional

both in taking on Voltaire's notorious criticisms directly and in mounting a blis-

tering critique of the French neoclassical dramatists in return.'3 While her desire

to publish anonymously conformed to contemporary practice and cannot be in-

terpreted solely as a feminine act of modesty, it is certain that she harbored gen-

eral doubts about being a "female Author" in a masculine field as well as specific

concerns about the works merit and her temerity in opposing Voltaire.'4 When

she heard that her father had discovered her authorship, she wrote to him ex- plaining her reasons "for the secresy with which I acted":

In the first place, there is in general a prejudice against female Authors especially if they invade those regions of litterature which

the Men are desirous to reserve to themselves. While I was young,

I should not have liked to have been class'd among authors, but at

my age it is less unbecoming. If an old Woman does not bewitch

her Neighbours Cows, nor make any girl in the Parish spit crooked

pins, the World has not reason to take offence at her amusing her-

self with reading books or even writing them. However, some cir-

cumstances in this particular case advise secresy. Mr Pope our great

Poet, the Bishop of Gloucester our Great Critick, & Dr Johnson

our great Scholar having already given their criticism upon Shakespear, there was a degree of presumption in pretending to meddle with a subject they had already treated tolerably well, sure

to incur their envy if I succeded, their contempt if I did not. Then

for a weak & unknown Champion to throw down the gauntlett of

defiance in the very teeth of Voltaire appear'd too daring.... I was

obliged to enter seriously into the nature of the Dramatick pur-

poses, & the character of the best dramatick writings, & by some-

times differing from the Code of the great Legislator in Poeticks,

13. For a history of Voltaire's views on Shakespeare, see Thomas Lounsbury, Shakespeare and Voltaire (London, 1902); and Haydn Mason, "Voltaire versus Shakespeare: The Lettre a l'Academie francaise (1776)," British Journalfor Eighteenth-Century Studies 18, no. z (1995): 173-85.

14. James Kennedy and W. A. Smith, eds., Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature

(London and Edinburgh, 1926), xi-xxiii; and Catherine Gallagher, Nobodys Story: The VanishingActs of Women Writers in the Marketplace, 1670-182 (Berkeley, Calif., 1994).

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132 ELIZABETH EGER

Aristotle, I was afraid the Learned would reject my opinions, the

unlearned yawn over my pages, so that I was very doubtfull of the general success of my work. (MO 4767, Montagu to Matthew

Robinson, o1 September 1769)'5

She was aware that her opinions were highly unconventional and might be un-

popular, with both scholars and the general reader; she considers herself "very

fortunate that the pert Newswriters have not sneered at the Lady Critick," as she

says later in the same letter.

Montagu's fears proved unnecessary. Public admiration for her heroic and

pioneering deed, which appealed to national pride, ensured that her identity as

author was swiftly circulated. She soon received flattering letters from several of

the leading male philosophers and critics of her day, including Edmund Burke, Lord Kames, Hugh Blair, James Beattie, and Sir Joshua Reynolds. The theater

manager David Garrick, who had orchestrated a series of elaborate performances

and popular entertainments to celebrate "Shakespeare's Jubilee" in 1769, first at

Stratford-upon-Avon and then at Drury Lane in London, was one of Montagu's

greatest admirers.'6 He published a poem praising her in St. Jamess Chronicle for

24-26 January 1771, in which he depicted Voltaire as "The Gallic God of literary War":

A Giant He, among the Sons of France

And at our Shakespear pois'd his glitt'ring Lance.

Out rush'd a Female to protect the Bard,

Snatch'd up her Spear, and for the fight prepard:

Attack'd the Vet'ran, pierced his Sev'n-fold Shield,

And drove him wounded, fainting from the field.

With Laurel crown'd, away the Goddess flew,

Pallas confest then open'd to our view,

Quitting her fav'rite form of Montagu.

Montagu appeared as a critical Amazon, slaying her opponent with fatal pre-

cision. By the time the fourth edition of the Essay appeared in 1777, she was con-

fident enough to print her name on the title page, a year after a triumphant visit

to Paris, where she had participated in a heated debate about the relative value

of English and French literature at the Academie Franqaise, which I discuss in

15. See Elizabeth Eger, ed., Selected Works ofElizabeth Montagu, vol. 1 of Bluestocking Feminism: Writings ofthe Bluestocking Circle, 1738-1785, gen. ed. Gary Kelly, 6 vols. (London, 1999), 170; cited henceforward in the

text. "MO" numbers refer to letters in the Huntington Library's Montagu Collection, also cited in the text.

16. See Johanne M. Stochholm, Garricks Folly: The Shakespeare Jubilee of 769 at Stratford and Drury Lane (London, 1964).

ELIZABETH EGER 132 ,~

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THE BLUESTOCKING DEFENSE OF SHAKESPEARE

more detail below. She also added her three Dialogues of the Dead, satirical com- ments on modern society, to the fourth and fifth editions. In 1783, Andrew

Kippis, editor of the Biographica Britannica, wrote to Montagu to tell her that her

work was "the best Defense of Shakespeare ever written, and that it is one of the

most complete pieces of poetical Criticism which any Age or Country has pro-

duced" (Mo 1211, 27 December 1783). Robert Potter encouraged her, telling

Montagu that "whoever writes for the public ought to have a proper confidence

in himself and this the public authorizes you to have; you have therefore a

right to feel and express a consciousness of the merit of that admirable work" (MO 4165, 1 July 1783).

While the figures of the Scottish Enlightenment welcomed Montagu's bril-

liance, Samuel Johnson proved harder to impress. The moral philosopher James

Beattie probably gives a reliable assessment of Johnson's reaction to her work; he

was writing under her patronage and was therefore inclined to flatter, but his

sentiments were shared by Montagu's circle of eminent literary friends:

Johnson's harsh and foolish censure of Mrs Montagu's book does

not surprise me, for I have heard him speak contemptuously of it.

It is, for all that, one of the best, most original, and most elegant

pieces of criticism in our language, or any other. Johnson had many

of the talents of a critic; but his want of temper, his violent preju-

dices, and something, I am afraid, of an envious turn of mind, made him often a very unfair one. Mrs Montagu was very kind to

him, but Mrs Montagu has more wit than anybody; and Johnson

could not bear that any person should be thought to have wit but himself. 7

Montagu's relationship with Johnson, whose edition of Shakespeare had appeared

in 1765, was inevitably competitive. As two of the most powerful figures of London literary life, they sometimes courted and flattered each other but were

generally suspicious and wary.18 Montagu began her Essay before his edition ap-

peared, but she was anxious about the comparisons people would inevitably make. She herself found the preface to his edition disappointing, as she expressed

in no uncertain terms to her sister in 1766:

I find people so dissatisfied with Mr Johnson's performance that I

can hardly displease more & indeed must do it less as he has dis-

appointed a great expectation. While he was following the syllables

17. Life ofBeattie, ed. Sir William Forbes, 2 vols. (London, 1807), 2:375. 18. See Norma Clarke, Dr. Johnsons Women (London, 2000), 138-45.

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134 ELIZABETH EGER

of verbal criticism he neglected the scope of the Author, & if he has

cleared some passages he has rather thrown an obscurity over the

genius of the great Tragedian. (MO 5836, Montagu to Sarah Scott,

11 January 1766)

Single-minded in her views and self-consciously differing from previous critics of

Shakespeare, Montagu wanted to distance herself from Johnson in particular, al-

though this is clearer from the correspondence than from the Essay itself. While

Johnson's preface dealt with a number of pressing methodological questions in

the history of Shakespeare criticism, he failed in Montagu's view to address "the

peculiar excellencies of Shakespear as a Dramatick poet." As she protested in a letter to Elizabeth Carter, "this point I shall labour as I think he therein excells

everyone" (MO 3176, 19 July 1766; Eger, 170). Montagu mounted a passionate de-

fense of Shakespeare's dramatic powers, particularly original in her focus on his

supernatural beings.19

Montagu's correspondence with Carter at this time conveys the emerging

strength of her confidence as she proceeds to take on the venerable sages of dra-

matic criticism, past and present:

I am quite of your opinion that our last Commentator of Shake-

spear [Johnson] found the piddling trade of verbal criticism below

his genius and I am much at a loss when I would account for his

persisting in it, through ye course of so many volumes. It has been

lucky for my amusement, but unfortunate for the publick, that he did not consider his author in a more extensive view. I have so

much veneration for our Poet, & so much zeal for the honour of

our Country, & I think the Theatrical entertainments capable of

conveying so much instruction, & of exciting such sentiments in

the people, that if I am glad he left the task to my unable hand, I dare hardly own it to myself. Our rank in the Belles lettres de-

pends a good deal on that degree of merit which is allow'd to Shakespeare, who is more than any other writer read by foreigners.

(MO3187, 21 October 1766; Eger, 173)

Once again, Montagu identifies England's reputation with that of Shakespeare.

She expresses her belief in his plays' potential for "conveying instruction" and

"exciting sentiments in the people." She goes on to criticize Johnson's negative

19. Jonathan Bate's claim that her Essay "is wholeheartedly Johnsonian, often uncritically dependent on the

1765 preface" is misleading, to say the least (Shakespearean Constitutions, 14).

ELIZABETH EGER 134 '

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THE BLUESTOCKING DEFENSE OF SHAKESPEARE

attitude to previous commentators, again lamenting his inability to praise Shakespeare's "dramatick genius":

[H]e should have said more or have said nothing. If he had given

attention to the dramatick genius of Shakespear he might have done him justice, & I wonder he did not enter with pleasure into

a task that seem'd peculiarly suited to him, he has taste & learning,

therefore is a capable critick; he wants invention, he wants strength

& vigour of genius to go through a long original work. I will own

he gives smart correction to former commentators, but ye last Commentator deserves the least indulgence, as he had most op-

portunity of seeing the futility of the thing. (Mo 3187, 21 October

1766; Eger, 173-74)

It is in the semi-public realm of her correspondence with a fellow female au-

thor, rather than in her published works, that Montagu's critical energy and am-

bition are most apparent and that she formulated pungent criticisms of the

strongest male literary voices of her age. In the published version of the Essay,

Montagu was more respectful to her male forebears and peers and to the tradi-

tion of eighteenth-century scholarship:

Mr Pope, in the preface to his edition of Shakespear, sets out by de-

claring, that, of all English poets, this tragedian offers the fullest

and fairest subject for criticism. Animated by an opinion of such

authority, some of the most learned and ingenious of our critics have made correct editions of his works, and enriched them with

notes. The superiority of talent and learning, which I acknowledge

in these editors, leaves me no room to entertain the vain pre-

sumption of attempting to correct any passages of this celebrated

author; but the whole, as corrected and elucidated by them, lies

open to a thorough enquiry into the genius of our great English

classic. Unprejudiced and candid judgement will be the surest basis

of his fame. (Essay, 1-2; Eger, 1)

While her epistolary commentary was often competitive and aggressive, then, her public critical demeanor was characterized by a shrewd adherence to a fem-

inine model of literary decorum. Nevertheless, her appeal to "Unprejudiced and

candid judgement" was one calculated to suggest her own particular qualification

for the task in hand. She was, it appeared, happy to neglect the dry labors of masculine critical scholarship in order to assert a more naturalistic and particu-

larly feminine understanding of Shakespeare's genius.

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136 ELIZABETH EGER

SHAKESPEARE'S FEMININE VIRTUES: SYMPATHY, CHARACTER, AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY

In both her criticism and her correspondence, Montagu emphasized Shake-

speare's capacity to dramatize a moral language. She wrote to George Lyttelton

in 1760, "I must observe too that the moral reflections of Shakespeare are not the

cold and formal observations of a Spectator, but come warm from the heart of

an interested person" (MO 4531; Eger, 160). Montagu saw the social potential of such an instinctive form of morality, writing to William Pulteney, "Dramatick

writings may be of the greatest service to the Morals of the people, if written as

naturally as Shakespeare writes" (MO 3084; Eger, 162). Writing in the wake of

Montagu's success, Elizabeth Griffith dedicated her Morality of Shakespeares Drama Illustrated (1775) to David Garrick, friend to both women. In her preface

she referred to Montagu's work as her inspiration:

To the further honour of the Author, be it said, that a Lady of dis-

tinguished merit has lately appeared a champion in his cause, against the minor critic, this minute philosopher, this fly upon the

pillar of St. Paul's [Voltaire]. It was her example which has stirred

up my emulation to this attempt; for I own that I am ambitious of

the honour of appearing to think, at least, though I despair of the

success of writing, like her.20

Griffith found Montagu's confidence and critical combativeness worthy of em-

ulation, and both writers communicate a profound respect for their contempo-

rary sister authors.'2 Furthermore, I would suggest that Bluestocking critical solidarity revolved around a shared belief in the feminine virtues that Shake-

speare's drama brought to life.

20. Elizabeth Griffith, The Morality of Shakespeare's Drama Illustrated (London, 1775), vii; cited henceforward in the text.

21. While Montagu was more willing to criticize her male contemporaries than was Griffith, both women

shared a debt to women writers and aligned themselves with their sister authors. In her discussion of the follies of love in As You Like It, Griffith mentions fellow muse Anna Barbauld (then still Aikin): "There is

a very pretty poem of the same subject, and which seems to have taken its hint from this same passage in

Shakespeare, though the instances are different and more in number, written by Miss Aikin, among a

collection of her's lately published, which I would insert here, but that I suppose every reader of taste must

be in possession of the work which so well deserves a place in the most select libraries; as doing equal

honour to literature, and her sex (see page 66 of her Poems)" (Griffith, Morality of Shakespeare, 77).

Montagu regularly solicited the opinion of Elizabeth Carter in preparing for the task of writing the Essay;

Carter sent her translations of Greek drama and extended essays on tragedy and comedy. They corre-

sponded frequently during the time of the Essay's composition and it appears that Carter checked and

authorized the revisions that appear in the fifth edition (1785).

ELIZABETH EGER 136 6

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THE BLUESTOCKING DEFENSE OF SHAKESPEARE

However, while Griffith and Montagu shared a concern for the morally in-

structive quality of Shakespeare's work, their approaches are very different.

Montagu's Essay begins with a general chapter on the quality of Shakespeare's "Dramatic Poetry" and then presents detailed discussions of his historical drama

(particularly Henry IV); "Preternatural Beings"; and his tragedies, concentrating

on Macbeth and Julius Caesar, including an aggressive attack on Corneille's Cinna.

Her analysis has the formal sophistication of traditional defenses, such as those

of Sidney and Pope. Griffith's work is closer in style to an educational anthology,

in which she reprints long excerpts from thirty-two of Shakespeare's plays, in-

terspersed with her moral commentary. She explains her purpose thus:

In these remarks and observations I have not restricted myself to

morals purely ethic, but have extended my observations and re-

flections to whatever has reference to the general oeconomy of life

and manners, respecting prudence, polity, decency, and decorum; or relative to the tender affections and fond endearments of human

nature; more especially regarding those moral duties which are the

truest source of moral bliss-domestic ties, offices and obligations.

(Morality of Shakespeare, xii-xiii)

Here Griffith is developing a theme suggested by Montagu, as she owns in her "General Postscript":

Mrs Montagu says, very justly, that "We are apt to consider Shakespeare only as a poet; but he is certainly one of the greatest moral philosophers that ever lived." And this is true; because, in his

universal scheme of doctrine, he comprehends manners, propri- eties, and decorums; and whatever relates to these, to personal char-

acter, or national description, falls equally within the great line of

morals. Horace prefers Homer to all the philosophers,

Qui, quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, Plenius et melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit.

And surely Shakespeareplenius et melius excels him again, as much

as the living scene exceeds the dead letter, as action is preferable to

didaction, or representation to declamation. (Morality of Shake- speare, 526)

Like Montagu's, Griffiths work formed a zealous defense of Shakespeare's dra- matic power, particularly focusing on his ability to create believable and com-

pelling characters. Both Montagu and Griffith considered example better than

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138 ELIZABETH EGER

precept, and they praised Shakespeare's ability to represent virtue on stage. As Griffith wrote, "Plato wished that Virtue could assume a visible form. Dramatic

exhibition gives one, both to Virtue and to Vice" (p. 526).

It was Shakespeare's powers of imaginative sympathy and of characterization

that made his lessons so compelling, for Montagu and Griffith. These, Montagu

argued, gave his work a realism superior to the allegorical conceits of neoclassical

drama: "In delineating characters he must be allowed far to surpass all dramatic

writers, and even Homer himself; he gives an air of reality to everything, and in

spite of many and great faults, effects, better than any one has done, the chief pur-

pose of the theatrical representation" (Essay, 20; Eger, 7-8). As she explained:

For copying nature as he found it in the busy walks of human life,

he drew from an original, with which the literati are seldom well

acquainted. They perceive his portraits are not of the Grecian or of

the Roman school: after finding them unlike to the celebrated forms preserved in learned museums they do not deign to enquire

whether they resemble the living persons they were intended to

represent. Among these connoisseurs, whose acquaintance with the

characters of men is formed in the library, not in the street, the

camp, or village, whatever is unpolished and uncouth passes for fantastic and absurd, though, in fact, it is a faithful representation

of a really existing character. (Essay, 17-18; Eger, 7)

Both Griffith and Montagu thus praised Shakespeare's psychological astuteness

as derived not from formal training but from everyday experience and for that

reason able to reach the inner depths of the human imagination.22 Montagu wrote of his Julius Caesar:

Great knowledge of the human heart had informed him, how easy

it is to excite a sympathy with things believed real.... He wrote to

please an untaught people, guided wholly by their feelings, and to

those feelings he applied, and they are often touched by circum-

stances that have not dignity and splendor enough to please the eye accustomed to the specious miracles of ostentatious art, and

the nice selection of refined judgement. (Essay, 276-27; Eger, 108)

In the eyes of Montagu and Griffith, Shakespeare's knowledge of the "human

heart" made him especially successful in his characterization of the female sex.

22. Cf. Griffith, Morality of Shakespeare: "[The Greeks' plays] were performed in the morning; which circum-

stance suffered the salutary effect to be worn out of the mind, by the business or avocation of the day.

Ours are at night; the impressions accompany us to our couch, supply the matter for out latest reflections,

and may sometimes furnish the subject of our very dreams" (p. 526).

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THE BLUESTOCKING DEFENSE OF SHAKESPEARE

Montagu's assessment of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth praises Shakespeare's sen- sitivity to the difference between male and female emotions:

The difference between a mind naturally prone to evil, and a frail

one warped by force of temptations, is delicately distinguished in

Macbeth and his wife. There are also some touches of the pencil that mark the male and female character. When they deliberate on

the murder of the king, the duties of host and subject strongly plead with him against the deed. She passes over these considera-

tions; goes to Duncan's chamber resolved to kill him, but could

not do it, because, she says, he resembles her father while he slept.

There is somthing feminine in this, and perfectly agreeable to the

nature of the sex; who, even when void of principle, are seldom

entirely divested of sentiment; and thus the poet, who, to use his

own phrase, had overstepped the modesty of nature in the exag- gerated fierceness of her character, returns back to the line and lim-

its of humanity, and that very judiciously, by a sudden impression,

which has only an instantaneous effect. As her character was not

composed of those gentle elements out of which regular repentance

could be formed, it was well judged to throw her mind into the

chaos of madness; and, as she had exhibited wickedness in its high-

est degree of ferocity and atrociousness, she should be an example

of the wildest agonies of remorse. As Shakespear could most ex-

actly delineate the human mind in its regular state of reason, so no

one ever so happily caught its varying forms in the wanderings of

delirium. (Essay, 200-202; Eger, 77)

This is an unusually tolerant interpretation of Lady Macbeth's conduct, which

proved notoriously unpalatable to eighteenth-century audiences. But it is con-

sistent with Montagu's admiration for Shakespeare's powers of identification with

his characters, his facility to inhabit their minds, which she describes thus:

Shakespear seems to have had the art of the Dervise, in the Arabian

tales, who could throw his soul into the body of another man, and

be at once possessed of his sentiments, adopt his passions, and rise to

all the functions and feelings of his situation.23 (Essay, 37; Eger, 13)

23. This language appears in an earlier form in a letter to Lord Lyttelton of io October 1760, in which

Montagu also compares Sophocles to Dryden, Cowley, and Shakespeare: "Shakespear; he alone, like the Dervise in the Arabian tales, can throw his soul into the body of another man; feel all his sentiments,

perform his function, & fill his place .... Every passing sentiment is caught by this great genius; every shade of passion, every gradation of thought is mark'd" (MO 1402).

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140 ELIZABETH EGER

It could be argued that Shakespeare's sympathetic portrayal of his heroines

was particularly admired by female critics. Margaret Cavendish wrote that "one

would think that he had been Metamorphosed from a Man to a Woman, for who could describe Cleopatra Better than he hath done, and many other Females

of his own Creating."24 However, both Montagu and Griffith seem to highlight

Shakespeare's most impressive female characters in fact to emphasize his depic-

tion of a common humanity that transcends the boundaries of gender, praising

his capacity to educate and reform both sexes in their knowledge of each other.

Griffith referred to Shakespeare's chameleon-like ability to display a range of characters thus: "What age, what sex, what character, escapes the touches of

Shakespeare's plastic hand!" (Morality of Shakespeare, 169).

The Bluestocking emphasis on the didactic potential of Shakespeare's plays

was taken up by several nineteenth-century women, from Mary Lamb to Anna

Jameson, whose Characteristics of Women, Moral, Poetical and Historical, first

published in 1832, later became known as "Shakespeare's Heroines." "It appears

to me," she wrote in the introduction, "that the condition of women in society,

as at present constituted is false in itself, and injurious to them,-that the edu-

cation of women is at present founded in mistaken principles, and tends to in- crease fearfully the sum of misery and error in both sexes." Rather than write

"essays on morality, and treatises on education," however, Jameson used Shake-

speare's heroines

to illustrate the manner in which the affections would naturally

display themselves in women-whether combined with high in- tellect, regulated by reflection, and elevated by imagination, or existing with perverted dispositions or purified moral sentiments.

I found all these in Shakespeare... his characters combine his- tory and real life; they are complete individuals, whose hearts and

souls are laid open before us-all may behold and all judge for themselves.5

Jameson was attracted to Shakespeare's plays precisely because they appeared to

invite what Montagu had termed "unprejudiced and candid judgement." Blue- stocking criticism can be seen, then, to foreshadow a nineteenth-century femi-

nist interest in Shakespeare's strength as a moral teacher and humane judge of female character.

24. From Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcaste, Letter CXXIII in CCXI Sociable Letters (London, 1664);

quoted in Thompson and Roberts, eds., Women Reading Shakespeare, 13. 25. Quoted ibid., 67.

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THE BLUESTOCKING DEFENSE OF SHAKESPEARE

However, while it might be tempting to define Montagu's and Griffith's works in terms of a female tradition of writings on Shakespeare's uses as a moral

teacher, it is important to recognize their ambitions in a broader critical context.

Both were keen to reach a general audience of both sexes and to be treated as crit-

ical equals with their male counterparts. Griffith's work is addressed both to men

and women, who are in equal need of reform: "Vice is neither masculine, nor

feminine; 'tis the common of the two" (Morality of Shakespeare, 169).

Montagu wished to share her commitment to Shakespeare's genius with as

many of her contemporaries as possible; she took great satisfaction in the idea of

her Essay's spreading influence as reflected in reviews of her works, as she notes

in a letter to Elizabeth Vesey:

You will be glad to hear that doughty Corporation of Criticks who

call themselves ye Critical Reviewers have most graciously extoll'd

a certain essay, indeed far beyond its desert, & indeed far beyond

the Authors conceit of its merit. As many good people in all the

towns in England regulate their opinions by this review it is lucky. The rich Grocer, the substantial Manufacturer sits & reads this lit-

terary gazette with implicit faith, & ye Curate (who dictates in mat-

ters of learning to ye Farmers Heiress, who at boarding school learnt to read Novels) takes his opinions & derives his knowledge from ye Monthly papers. (MO 6398, 5 June 1769)

In the same letter, she fantasizes about the instructive benefits to be received

from her work by "ye Farmers Heiress, who at boarding school learnt to read

Novels." She intended to educate readers of all social ranks in Shakespeare's ge-

nius. With this purpose in mind, she ensured that her own expository style was

clear and simple, accurate and accessible. In the following section of this essay I

will explore the question of women's particular investment in the status of the

English language.

FEMALE CRITICS AND THE "MOTHER-TONGUE"

The defense of Shakespeare by women writers was inevitably political in the con-

text of broader eighteenth-century debates about the relative status of the classical

and modern languages.26 But Bluestocking Shakespeare critics were in particu- lar conscious of following in a line of female scholars who had made serious ar-

guments for their sex's privileged relation to English itself. As Aphra Behn wrote

26. Joseph M. Levine, The Battle of the Books: History and Literature in the Augustan Age (Ithaca, N.Y., 1991).

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142 ELIZABETH EGER

in the preface to her play The Dutch Lover (1673), the genre of drama provided

particularly good evidence of the pleasures of plain speaking:

Plays have no great room for that which is men's great advantage

over women, that is Learning; we all well know that the Immortal

Shakespeare's Plays (who was not guilty of much more than often

falls to women's share) have better pleas'd the World than Jonson's

works, though, by the way 'tis said that Benjamin was no such

Rabbi neither, for I am inform'd that his Learning was but Grammar high; (sufficient indeed to rob poor Salust of his best Orations.)27

Part of Shakespeare's attraction for his earliest female commentators and imita-

tors, then, was the quality of"unlearnedness." Anxieties about the effects of schol-

arship on the fair sex tended to focus on the dangerous disciplines of classical

learning and science, in which women's demonstration of learning was potentially

transformative, unsettling their role in practical life. Appreciation of the national

poet was ostensibly less objectionable, not appearing to represent a threat to the

patriarchal foundations of higher knowledge and in fact complying with con-

temporary restrictions of women's access to the classical languages. Women who

knew the classical languages, such as Carter, were considered curious exceptions,

and Anna Barbauld had to plead with her father to allow her access to Latin and

Greek lessons at Warrington Academy. It can be no accident that some of the

most powerful early defenses of the native tongue were written by women, who

emphasized the scholarly achievement of the study of English grammar and lit- erary history.

Elizabeth Elstob was one of those stoutly committed to lauding the Northern

tongues. An ambitious scholar from an early age, she mastered eight languages but considered Germanic studies more open to women than "the Greek and

Latin store." Her eventful life included a spell working as consultant to George

Ballard, author of the pioneering and scholarly Memoirs ofSeveral Ladies of Great

Britain Celebratedfor their Writings (1752).28 Toward the end of her life she be-

came governess to the children of the duchess of Portland, who was a great friend

of Montagu's. Montagu's letters are said to have passed through Elstob's hands on

27. Aphra Behn, preface to The Dutch Lover, in The Works ofAphra Behn, ed. Montague Summers (London, 1915; reprint ed., New York, 1967), 224.

28. See Ruth Perry, "George Ballard's Biographies of Learned Ladies," in J. D. Browning, ed., Biography in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1980), 85-111.

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THE BLUESTOCKING DEFENSE OF SHAKESPEARE

occasion and it is quite possible that they met when Montagu visited the family home at Bulstrode.29

Elstob's The Rudiments of Grammarfor the English Saxon Tongue, first given

in English: with an apologyfor the study ofthe Northern Antiquities. Being very use-

fulfor the study of our ancient English poets and other writers (1715), dedicated to

the Princess of Wales, included on the title page an explicit defense of the criti-

cal capacities of her sex:

Our Earthly Possessions are truly enough called a PATRIMONY, as derived

to us by the Industry of our FATHERS; but the Language that we

speak is our MOTHER-TONGUE; And who so proper as play the Crit- ticks in this as the FEMALES.

Here is one of the earliest and most forthright apologies for the female critic.

Her grammar book was written in English especially for women rather than in

Latin, which was standard for such works. She took issue with the political stance

of a Tory classicist such as Swift, whose Proposalfor Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue (1712) promoted the social structure as well as the

linguistic excellence of the classical world. Elstob attacked his "anti-Gothic"

stance in her brilliant prefatory "Apology," a polemic directed against Swift and

his fellow grammarians. She praised the utility, even the necessity, of Old En-

glish studies, arguing that the Anglo-Saxon language is the spring of modern

English and therefore the epitome of national identity, law, and religion. In an-

swering Swift's charge that monosyllabic languages were harsh and grating to the

ear, she marshaled counterexamples from the world's great poets, from Homer

and Virgil to Chaucer, Waller, Dryden, and Swift himself. She concluded by

adding "a few Instances from some of our Female Poets," including extracts from

the work of Katherine Philips, Anne Wharton, and Anne Finch, countess of

Winchelsea.30 Swift never directly acknowledged Elstob's preface but, according

to Richard Morton, it appears to have influenced his subsequent views both of language and of women's education.3' The two issues were linked, of course-the

higher the status that the native language achieved in the world of learning, the higher the position that women could occupy within its precincts.32

29. See Elizabeth Montagu, The Queen of the Bluestockings: Her Correspondence fom 1720 to 1761, by Emily J.

Climenson, 2 vols. (London, 1906), 1:133. See also Perry, "Ballard's Biographies of Learned Ladies," 85-111.

30. See the Folger Collective on Early Women Critics, ed., Women Critics, 166o-1820 (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1995), 58-66.

31. Richard Morton, "Elizabeth Elstob's Rudiments ofGrammar (1715): Germanic Philology for Women," Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 20 (1990): 267-87.

32. See Mitzi Myers, "Domesticating Minerva: Bathsua Makin's 'Curious' Argument for Women's Education," Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 14 (1985): 173-92.

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144 ELIZABETH EGER

The celebration of Shakespeare's genius was coeval with the rise of interest

in the vernacular language and its stylistic complexities, as well as coinciding with

the increasing visibility of the professional woman writer. In opposition to the

rigid rules of orthodox classical drama, writers increasingly invoked concepts of

Shakespeare's genius, nature, and imagination. As Brian Vickers has demon-

strated, changing concepts of genius and inspiration produced both a more di-

rect response to his poetry and a new spirit of detailed and systematic analysis of

his text. Edward Upton's Critical Observations ofShakespeare (1748), for example,

an important critique of Shakespeare's language and style, argued for the musi-

cal powers of his poetic expression. These qualities were seen to be aided by his

lack of learning; only "inferior wits" needing formal training. Accordingly, when

Montagu defended Shakespeare from charges of barbarism raised by Voltaire,

among others, she based her argument on his spontaneity and originality:

Great indulgence is due to the errors of original writers, who, quit-

ting the beaten track which others have travelled, make daring in-

cursions into unexplored regions of invention, and boldly strike

into the pathless sublime: it is no wonder if they are often bewil-

dered, sometimes benighted; yet it is surely more eligible to partake

in the pleasure and the toil of their adventures, than still to follow

the cautious steps of timid imitation through trite and common

roads. (Essay, 8; Eger, 3)

She further exonerated his reputation on the grounds of his belonging to "the

people," an observation to be echoed by Madame de Stael.33 This argument ac- counted for his faults as well as his brilliance:

If the severer muses, whose sphere is the library and the senate, are

obliged in complaisance to this degeneracy, to trick themselves out

with meretricious and frivolous ornaments, as is too apparent from

the composition of the historians and orators in declining empires,

can we wonder that a dramatic poet, whose chief interest is to please the people, should, more than any other writer, conform himself to their humour. (Essay, 9; Eger, 4)

Bluestocking investment in Shakespeare's use of the vernacular turned in part, then, on its accessibility. Plays in English could be understood by everyone and

discussed even by those lacking classical learning. On another level, of course, the

33. "In England, all classes are equally attracted by the pieces of Shakespeare. Our finest tragedies, in France,

do not interest the people"; Anne Louise Germaine de Stael, De LAllemagne (1810-13)-published in English in 1813-quoted in Jonathan Bate, ed., The Romantics on Shakespeare (London, 1992), 82.

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THE BLUESTOCKING DEFENSE OF SHAKESPEARE

distinctive modern role of English as a national language was crystalizing in this

period. In this respect, too, the Bluestocking defense of Shakespeare played its part.

THE BLUESTOCKINGS AND A NATIONAL CANON OF LITERATURE

Montagu opens her chapter "Upon the Cinna of Corneille" with a spirited de-

fense of the unique strengths of English blank verse. She argues that while iambic

pentameter might appear easily achieved because of its affinity with the patterns

of speech, it was extremely difficult for the poet to master. She accuses the French

neoclassicists of insensitivity to the sophistication of English verse, mocking their

arrogant dismissal of its technical complexities. Before exposing the particular

errors of Voltaire's translations of Shakespeare, she celebrates the natural beauty

of Shakespeare's poetry, which, she argues, has an affinity with music:

It rises gracefully into the sublime; it can slide happily into the fa-

miliar; hasten its career if impelled by vehemence of passion; pause

in the hesitation of doubt; appear lingering and languid in dejec-

tion and sorrow; is capable of varying its accent, and adapting its

harmony, to the sentiment it should convey, and the passion it would excite, with all the power of musical expression.

Even a person, who did not understand our language, would

find himself very differently affected by the following speeches in

that metre. (Essay, 210-11; Eger, 80)

Griffith conveys an even greater pride in the beauty of the vernacular, prais-

ing Shakespeare as superior to "the whole collective host of Greek or Roman

writers, whether ethic, epic, dramatic, didactic or historic." She described his idiosyncratic use of words thus:

[O]ur Author shall measure his pen with any of the antient styles,

in their most admired compound and decompound epithets, de- scriptive phrases, or figurative expressions. The multitudinous sea,

ear-piercingfife, big war, giddy mast, sky-aspiring, heaven-kissing hill,

time-honoured name, cloud-clapt towers, heavenly-harnessed team,

rash gunpowder, polished perturbation, gracious silence, golden care,

trumpet-tongued, thought-executingfires; with a number of other

words, both epic and comic, are instances of it. (Morality ofShake- speare, 525)

Griffith particularly praises Shakespeare's bold use of English-for example, in her comment on the use of the word "Sightless": "Shakespeare often places

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ELIZABETH EGER

the negative at the end of the adjective, instead of the beginning. This varies his

phrases, and enriches his language. Modern writers are too much dictionary bound" (Morality of Shakespeare, 177). In her commentary one can detect an implicit argument for the superiority of the native tongue. Her discussion of

Henry IVtakes a side-swipe at "the learned":

[T]hey deny Shakespeare to have been a classic scholar, but one would fancy that he was both a master and admirer of Ovid by the

manly and puerile stile he frequently mixes together in the same

passage; ... There is hardly a line in the above speech of the king,

that is not worth the whole of what Sophocles makes Oedipus say

to his son in the same circumstance. But I don't expect the learned

will ever give up this point to me, while one passage remains in

Greek, and the other only in English. (Morality ofShakespeare, 221-22)

In her concluding defense of English tragedies she cites Montagu's critical ex- ample with patriotic ardor.

Montagu's enthusiasm for the native tongue influenced the higher ranks of

intellectual institutions as well as achieving popular appeal, and it is arguable

that her Essay contributed to the early development of the idea of "English Literature" as an object of university study. In a letter to Montagu, Hugh Blair,

who was a founding figure in the history of literary studies, noted that she had

placed the works of Shakespeare "in a light that is New & Just; and have de-

fended them ... on the most rational principles of Criticism," declaring that he

would "refer my Students to your Essay for proper ideas concerning so Capital an Author in our Language" (Mo 483, 3 June 1769). Alastair Fowler has recently

charted the influential contribution to the birth of literary studies made by Adam

Smith, Lord Kames, and Blair, all of whom Montagu corresponded with. She was especially close to Lord Kames, who asked her for literary advice on several

occasions.34 Blair's enthusiasm for Montagu's "masterly" Essay as a didactic work

founded on the "most rational principles of Criticism" suggests the impact of her

work on education in particular, where it enhanced curricular emphasis on the native tongue.35

34. As Fowler has recently written, "By the middle of the eighteenth century, instruction in vernacular litera-

ture was in demand throughout Britain. The Scottish Enlightenment (a movement so consequential for

Britain that England has tried to forget it) was generating enthusiasm for 'improvement' of various sorts.

And the improvers turned to history and literature as agencies for change" ("Leavis of the North: The

Role of Hugh Blair in the Foundation of English Literary Studies" [Times Literary Supplement, 14 August 1998, 3-4]).

35. Griffith also stressed the importance of a literary education in her treatment of Shakespeare's plays, urging

readers to perform "the dissection of its parts to his own judgement, taste and feeling" (Morality of Shakespeare, 217).

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THE BLUESTOCKING DEFENSE OF SHAKESPEARE

Montagu had always thought of her literary identity in nationalist terms, of

course, openly pitting her arguments against Voltaire's "misrepresentations" in

the title of her Essay, for example. From an early age she had admired Voltaire's

wit and legendary intelligence but was profoundly irritated by his attacks on

Shakespeare's genius. In 1755, having just read his Orphelin de Chine, she wrote

to her sister that she did not care for it: "When I compare this indifference with

the interest, the admiration, the surprise with which I read what the saucy

Frenchman calls lesfarces monstreuses of Shakespeare, I could burn him and his

tragedy.... Oh! that we were as sure our fleets and armies could drive the French

out of America as that our poets and tragedians can drive them out of Parnassus.

I hate to see these tame creatures, taught to pace by art, attack fancy's sweetest

child."36 Montagu's equation of military with literary power reveals the pro- foundly nationalist and competitive cultural context in which she wrote. As

Haydn Mason has recently pointed out, Voltaire himself came to see Shakespeare

more and more in symbolically patriotic terms, the playwright increasingly con-

nected in his mind with British success in the Seven Years' War. In 1760 he at-

tacked Shakespeare in his Appel toutes les nations de I'Europe, which, as the title

suggests, attempted to court the whole of Europe against the Englishman.37

The opening pages of Montagu's Essay establish the grounds of her antipathy to Voltaire:

-Our Shakespear, whose very faults pass here unquestioned, or are perhaps consecrated through the enthusiasm of his admirers,

and the veneration paid to long-established fame, is by a great wit

[Voltaire], a great critic, and a great poet of a neighbouring nation,

treated as the writer of monstrous farces, called by him tragedies;

and barbarism and ignorance are attributed to the nation by which

he is admired. Yet if wits, poets, critics, could ever be charged with

presumption, one might say there was some degree of it in pro-

nouncing, that, in a country where Sophocles and Euripedes are as

well understood as in any in Europe, the perfections of dramatic

poetry should be as little comprehended as among the Chinese. (Essay, 1-3; Eger, 1)

While Montagu may present herself as humble in relation to the great English

Shakespeare editors, such as Pope, she confidently attacks the presumption and

inaccuracy of Voltaire. She launches a withering attack on his knowledge of

36. The Letters ofMrs. Elizabeth Montagu, with Some ofthe Letters of Her Correspondents, 4 vols. (1908-13; New York, 1974), 4:7, 18 November 1755.

37. Haydn Mason, "Voltaire versus Shakespeare," British Journalfor Eighteenth-Century Studies 18 (1995): 173-84.

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148 ELIZABETH EGER

English. On his misinterpretation of the word "course," she remarks drily, "It is

very extraordinary, that a man should set up for a translator, with so little ac-

quaintance in the language, as not to be able to distinguish whether a word, in

a certain period signifies a race, a service of dishes, or a mode of conduct" (Essay,

213; Eger, 81). She even retranslates Voltaire's French back into a crude form of

English to try to demonstrate his faults to those who do not understand French.

Her aim is to "deter other beaux esprits from attempting to mar works of genius

by the masked battery of an unfair translation" (Essay, 218; Eger, 83). Her pierc-

ing criticisms of Corneille's "weak effeminacies" and "awkwardly conducted" drama are intended as a direct retaliatory gesture, and they demonstrate not only

her scholarly attention to the details of the English language but also the superi-

ority of the greatest English dramatist, specifically in a linguistic register. The ar-

gument was nationalist on both counts. No male critic dared to take on Voltaire with as much ferocity as did Mon-

tagu. In fact, Voltaire was not refuted so roundly and frankly by any other English

writer during his lifetime. Thomas Lounsbury has described Johnson's refusal to

reply to his criticisms, despite the encouragement of Boswell.38 Montagu's knowl-

edge of French, though she spoke it badly, was seemingly superior to Voltaire's

of English. Her demonstration was conclusive. The "faithful translator stood convicted of presumption and ignorance."39

Montagu's work attracted a good deal of attention in Europe. It was translated into German in 1771 by Johann Eschenburg, whose translation of Shakespeare's works appeared a few years later, an important influence on the

German Romantic movement. The Essay was also translated into French in 1777

and into Italian in 1828. Meanwhile, Letourneur's translation of three plays- Othello, The Tempest, and Julius Caesar-foreshadowed the first complete edi-

tion of Shakespeare's works in French. As Mason notes, the edition of the three

plays contained notes and commentaries, prefatory fanfare including a dedicatory

epistle to Louis XVI, a life of Shakespeare, and a subscription list with over a

thousand names, and a refutation of criticisms on Shakespeare.40 Voltaire was

extremely offended by the fact that he was not invited to contribute, perceiving

a calculated insult. He decided to address these matters by writing a letter in re-

sponse to the translation, to be read by his friend and ally D'Alembert at a meet-

ing of the Academie FranSaise. He saw this as his patriotic duty, and his letter is

peppered with the defensive language of a man at war: "Je plaide pour la France";

"je combats pour la nation"; "je ne veux point etre l'esclave des Anglais."4'

38. Thomas Lounsbury, Shakespeare and Voltaire (London, 1902), 288. 39. Rene Louis Huchon, Mrs. Montagu and Her Friends, 1720-1800: A Sketch (London, 1907), 141.

40. Mason, "Shakespeare versus Voltaire," 175. 41. Ibid., 176.

148 - ELIZABETH EGER

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THE BLUESTOCKING DEFENSE OF SHAKESPEARE

When Montagu visited Paris in 1776, she was feted by polite society. Her status as a literary and cultural ambassador, already present in her capacity as pa-

tron and salon hostess, was considerably strengthened by her appearance as a

published author. She was invited to the meeting of the Academie Fran;aise where Voltaire's retaliatory letter was to be read out to the assembled members,

followed by a discussion of the merits of Letournour's translation. In a letter to

her friend Mrs. Vesey, Montagu reported the scene:

Then rose Monsr D'Alembert to read a most blackguard abusive

invective of Monsr de Voltaire's against Shakespear the translation

of whose works he apprehended wd spoil ye taste of ye French

Nation. He attributed to Shakespear many things he never said,

he gatherd together many things the rudeness of the age allowd

him to say, & with a few mauvaises plaisanteries season'd ye dis-

course with as much mauvaise foy. He gave an account of ye Tragedy of Gorboduc, & represented it as ye taste of yea Nation in

Drama though not ten people have for these hundred years read

Gorboduc. This trash of Monsieur Voltaires answered the great purpose of his life, to raise a momentary laugh at things that are

good, & a transient scorn of Men much superior to himself, but I must do that justice to the Academy & Audience they seemd in

general displeased at ye paper read. I was askd by an Academician

if I wd answer this piece of Voltaires & did not doubt but I could

do it very well. I said Mr l'Abbe Arnauld had done it much better

than I could, in ye praises he had give to Original genius, & ye benefits arising from the study of them, that I remembered 6o years

ago in the same Academy, Old Homer had met with ye same treat-

ment with Shakespear, that they now did justice to Homer, I did

not doubt but they wd do so to Shakespear, for that great Geniuses

survived those who set up to be their Criticks, or more absurdly to

be their Rivals. (MO 6486, 7 September 1776; Eger, 196-97)

While D'Alembert's report of the meeting is more positive, he nevertheless ad-

mitted to Voltaire that the overall reaction to his letter had been mixed: "Je n'ai pas

besoin de vous dire que les Anglois qui etoient la sont sortis mecontens, & meme

quelques Fran5ois qui ne se contentent pas d'etre battus par eux sur terre st sur

mer, & qui voudroient encoire que nous le fussions sur le theatre."42 Montagu

had become enmeshed in a controversy of national importance, provoking the interest of all the "beaux esprits" in Paris. Her sense of critical superiority in this

42. Voltaire: Correspondence, ed. T. Besterman (Paris, 1968-77), D20272, D'Alembert to Voltaire, August 1776.

3 149

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150 ELIZABETH EGER

context is striking. Her letter to Vesey conveys her self-satisfaction in rising above

the demeaning squabbles of contemporary literary society, calling for her audi-

ence to submit to a longer view of literary history in determining Shakespeare's

value to the literary canon. On her return to England she was welcomed as a na- tional heroine.

The success of Montagu's intervention in a public and nationalist literary debate demonstrates the power of the female intellect in the public sphere of

letters. The Essay remained popular at the beginning of the nineteenth cen- tury. The sixth edition appeared in 1810, a decade after her death, and was still

well known as an authoritative celebration of the national poet's genius. Maria

Edgeworth referred to the Bluestocking defense of Shakespeare against the French

assault in her novel Patronage, published in 1814, the same year that Austen's

Mansfield Park appeared. The French and English heroes of Edgeworth's novel argue about the merits of Shakespeare:

"I have every edition of Shakespeare, that ever was printed or pub-

lished, and every thing that ever was written, good, bad, or indif-

ferent, at Clay-Hall.-I made this a principle, and I think every Englishman should do the same.-Your Mr Voltaire," added this

polite Englishman, turning to Count Altenberg, "made a fine ex-

ample of himself by dashing at our Shakespeare?"

"Undoubtedly, Voltaire showed he did not understand Shakespeare, and therefore, did not do him justice," replied Count

Altenberg. "Even Voltaire had some tinge of national prejudice, as well as other men. It was reserved for the women, to set us in this

instance, as in many others, an example at once of superior candor,

and superior talent."43

Edgeworths reference to the women who came to Shakespeare's aid suggests that

her readers would have been familiar with the Bluestocking defense of their na-

tional playwright. However, one can detect a slightly patronizing tone in Count

Altenberg's acknowledgment that "the women" have set "us" an example. The

sexes remain apart, members of different systems of aesthetic judgment. Edge-

worth gently suggests that there is more than national pride at stake in laying the groundwork for the future of literary reputations.

Adopting a reverential attitude to Shakespeare's work, Montagu and Griffith participated in a literary debate that remained conservative and nationalist in

many respects. So while they legitimized themselves as writers by addressing the

43. Maria Edgeworth, Patronage, ed. Dale Spender (London and New York, 1986), 328. I would like to thank Cliona O'Gallchoir for alerting me to this reference.

ELIZABETH EGER 150 m

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THE BLUESTOCKING DEFENSE OF SHAKESPEARE

issue of Shakespearean excellence, it might be argued that their work did not ultimately challenge masculine authority in the context of an emerging nation-

al literary canon; one cannot help wondering whether Montagu's Essay would have been quite so popular had she openly criticized Johnson in the manner that

she attacked Voltaire. The Bluestocking defense of Shakespeare negotiated a dif-

ficult balance of gender politics in relation to the hierarchy of literary genres-

and languages-that was being established as part of Britain's cultural identity.

One particular female tradition of writing laid claim to the previously masculine

arena of critical judgment, paradoxically by using what were considered feminine

attributes, "candor" and "talent," and a certain "unlearnedness." While Montagu,

and to a lesser extent Griffith, had bolstered their own status as female critics by

contributing to the creation of Shakespeare's reputation, in the longer term their

writings slipped from view and out of the literary tradition, even as Shakespeare's

became ever more prominent. Thus while students are familiar with the critical

elaboration of Shakespeare's powers of sympathy, characterization, and moral philosophy in the work of Coleridge, Keats, and Hazlitt, and while key elements

of the Bluestocking defense of Shakespeare became part of subsequent critical

orthodoxy, few have heard of Montagu or Griffith, whose work undoubtedly

contributed to the Romantic fascination with Shakespeare's particular genius and

to the nature of his modern reputation.

University of Liverpool

151

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