Date of Award
1992
Publication Type
Master Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Department
English Language, Literature, and Creative Writing
Keywords
Literature, English.
Rights
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Although in his major poems about women Pope appears to be reinforcing both his society's attitudes towards women and the conventions that males in his society used to construct female character, in actuality he is not. Rather, Pope critiques his society's acceptance of conventions, such as those that make up the rhetoric of courtship, which result in the subordination of women and the trivializing of their worth. Pope does this by reiterating and then subverting the accepted cliches and conventions that surround women in order to critique them. In order to understand the role of women in Pope's society and what Pope's attitudes towards women were this study examines Pope's place within his society, the role of upper and middle-class women in his society, his relationships with women and his correspondence to and about them. Then, I will illustrate how Pope used conventions and forms such as the rhetoric of courtship, the epistle, and the mock-epic to challenge his society's views about women and women's views about themselves. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)Dept. of English Language, Literature, and Creative Writing. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1992 .S785. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 31-04, page: 1506. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1992.
Recommended Citation
Stumpf, Chris-Anne., "Alexander Pope's response to eighteenth century constructions of female character." (1992). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 924.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/924