Silly Novels by Lady Novelists
The novel Silly Novels by Lady Novelists was written by George Eliot and published in 1856. It is a satirical essay that criticizes the popular novels of the time, which were often written by women and focused on romance and melodrama. The essay argues that these novels are shallow and lack substance, and that they perpetuate harmful stereotypes about women. Eliot suggests that literature should be more serious and thought-provoking, and that it should challenge readers to think critically about the world around them.
By George Eliot · First published 1856 · Genre: Literary Criticism, Satire, Feminist Literature · 13,418 words
First lines
Silly Novels by Lady Novelists are a genus with many species, determined by the particular quality of silliness that predominates in them -- the frothy, the prosy, the pious, or the pedantic. But it is a mixture of all these -- a composite order of feminine fatuity -- that produces the largest class of such novels, which we shall distinguish as the _mind-and-millinery_ species. The heroine is usually an heiress, probably a peeress in her own right, with perhaps a vicious baronet, an amiable duke, and an irresistible younger son of a marquis as lovers in the foreground, a clergyman and a poet sighing for her in the middle distance, and a crowd of undefined adorers dimly indicated beyond. Her eyes and her wit are both dazzling; her nose and her morals are alike free from any tendency to irregularity; she has a superb _contralto_ and a superb intellect; she is perfectly well dressed and perfectly religious; she dances like a sylph, and reads the Bible in the original tongues. Or it may be that the heroine is not an heiress -- that rank and wealth are the only things in which she is deficient; but she infallibly gets into high society, she has the triumph of refusing many matches and securing the best, and she wears some family jewels or other as a sort of crown of righteousness at the end. Rakish men either bite their lips in impotent confusion at her repartees, or are touched to penitence by her reproofs, which, on appropriate occasions, rise to a lofty strain of rhetoric; indeed, there is a general propensity in her to make speeches, and to rhapsodize at some length when she retires to her bedroom.
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Silly Novels by Lady Novelists is listed on Textopian as an essay by George Eliot, dated 1856 CE.
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- Work type: Essay
- Author: George Eliot
- Date: 1856 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Literary Criticism, Satire, Feminist Literature, Non-fiction
- Length: 13,418 words
- Structure: 1 section, 60 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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Discussion starters
- What should a reader notice first when entering Silly Novels by Lady Novelists?
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Similar titles
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- Balzac by Edgar Saltus
- Charles Dickens by G. K. Chesterton
- Dickens Again by G. K. Chesterton
- The Victorian Age In Literature by G. K. Chesterton
- Woman In France Madame De Sable by George Eliot
Genres
- Literary Criticism — The work is primarily an essay critiquing the writing styles and themes of contemporary female novelists.
- Satire — The essay employs satire to mock and highlight the absurdities in the novels written by certain lady novelists.
- Feminist Literature — It addresses the role and perception of women writers in the literary field, albeit with a critical tone.
- Non-fiction — The work is a non-fictional essay rather than a narrative or fictional story.
Tags
literary criticism · feminism · 19th century literature · women writers · satire · gender roles · novel · social commentary · humor · British literature · cultural critique · female authors