Self, Society, and the Passions: Reading Late Eighteenth-Century British Women’s Plays

This thesis argues for a connection between later eighteenth-century women’s literary dramaturgy and medical and philosophical writing on the topics of self and sociality, in ways that have yet to receive sufficient critical attention. This thesis features close readings of eight play texts written by four female playwrights of the eighteenth century: Joanna Baillie, Elizabeth Griffith, Elizabeth Inchbald, and Hannah More. This research sits at an intersection between literary, dramatic, medical, and philosophical writing as I place the works of the female dramatists examined here in contrast and conversation with the male-dominated fields of medicine and philosophy, and it is through a close reading of various texts that this work investigates the non-linear relationship between theories of self in each field. While critical interest in eighteenth-century female playwrights has increased since the 1980s, attention to male authors and playwrights from this period remains significantly higher, affecting the ways in which women of this period are positioned in relation to perceived ‘male’ fields of knowledge. This thesis demonstrates an original contribution to studies of eighteenth-century drama by focusing on these connections in literary analyses of these plays, building on scholarship that provides the groundwork for the historical and biographical contexts for these dramatists and eighteenth-century theatre more broadly. The hybrid space of the theatre and the very different discursive space of the dramatic text afforded women a unique opportunity to engage with and participate in public discussions about the self and society. Drawing on a keen awareness of their contemporary moments and a clear interest in both philosophical concepts and social questions of ‘performance’, these texts offer a negotiation between philosophy, medicine, and popular discourse. I argue that eighteenth-century British female playwrights were active participants in the social examination and (re)conceptualisation of the self that was also taking place in other fields and that their works are deserving of greater critical attention, particularly using the framework that I showcase in this thesis. In analysing these plays I demonstrate that the self and ideas of social behaviour and performance were central to the writing of dramatists, philosophers, and physicians in the eighteenth century, and I argue that close readings of these plays illuminate how these women were engaging in public discourse on the self. This study, therefore, contributes to the critical re-positioning of women in literary and dramatic studies particularly on the history of the self.