Talk:Love in Excess; or, The Fatal Enquiry

Novels Mid‑importance

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Comments

My goodness! I don't know where the text came from, but there are some howlers. I apologize to the good natured and hard working people who put the article together, but the 1720's were dominated by novels by women, and the plot of the novel is only a mildly arched eyebrow compared to some of the narratives from contemporary women. There were many, many, many novels by women before and after, and the remarkable thing is when men began writing novels (as with Defoe in 1724). Again, I apologize for seeming meanspirited in my criticism, but it's just factually wrong to say either that this is the most famous Heywood novel or that it is a striking example of one of the earliest novels by a woman. Geogre 21:55, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes and no. Robinson Crusoe was published in 1719, so saying that the remarkable thing was when men began writing novels after the woman-dominated 1720s is odd. (Granted, you didn't necessarily mean only the 1720s, but Jonathan Swift, for example, was writing since the beginning of the century.) In addition, this book is rather sexually explicit, warranting, I think, the word "scandalous" (especially comparing it to, say, her tame pro-marriage later books) is warranted. zafiroblue05 | Talk 01:11, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? Of course I didn't mean only in the 20's! Let's go back to 1686 and Love Letters Between a Noble-man and his Sister by Aprha Behn, 1689 and Oroonoko, Mary Manley's The New Atlantis, and dozens more. My point was merely to say that the last sentence of the present article is weird. It isn't unusual that a woman wrote novels early on. It's weird when men did. Crusoe is '19, but Defoe's serious novel writing (and the male English novel, I'd say) dates from the 20's. I say this for all sorts of reasons, mainly economic. Men had access to the stage, where women had much less (Heywood and others excepted), and men had access to journalism more than women, and therefore women had access to the novel more. Everything changes in 1737, but, before that, "novel" is a term of contempt for a feminine product created by women and pretend women. This, of course, excerpts the obsenities produced as Curlicisms. Geogre 02:34, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Again, let me apologize for being harsh. This is my field, so I can be cantankerous. I agree that the novel is explicit, although Behn had been more explicit prior. Swift had been writing since '96, but the "novel," whatever it is (and every definition fails that I've ever seen) is mercurial. Women were surely writing, is my point, and writing long fictions. I consider Betsy Thoughtless, by the way, to be a wretched affair, and I prefer Heywood in her explicit, rakish, and anti-Whig mode, but I did have to insert a change or two to de-fang the "one of the earliest" bits and the "most famous novel." I wish Betsy Thoughtless weren't the most famous novel. I think it's a joke. However, it generates many more hits on the periodical literature search than Love in Excess. Geogre 02:39, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]