Gender and the Formation of Taste in Eighteenth-Century Britain: The Analysis of BeautyBeauty is one of the most important and intriguing ideas in eighteenth-century culture. In Gender and the Formation of Taste in Eighteenth-Century Britain Robert Jones provides a fresh understanding of how emergent critical discourses negotiated with earlier accounts of taste and beauty in order to redefine culture in line with the polite virtues of the urban middle classes. Crucially, the ability to form opinions on questions of beauty, and the capacity to enter into debates on its nature, was thought to characterise those able to participate in cultural discourse. Furthermore, the term 'beauty' was frequently invoked, in various and contradictory ways, to determine acceptable behaviour for women. In his book, Jones discusses a wide range of material, including philosophical texts by William Hogarth and Edmund Burke and Joshua Reynolds, novels by Charlotte Lennox and Sarah Scott, and the many representations of the celebrated beauty Elizabeth Gunning. |
Contents
gender luxury and | 37 |
polite taste and the judgement | 79 |
Joshua Reynolds | 117 |
femininity ugliness | 153 |
Notes | 211 |
| 249 | |
| 266 | |
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Gender and the Formation of Taste in Eighteenth-Century Britain: The ... Robert W. Jones No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
account of taste Addison aesthetic Agreeable Ugliness ambiguous Analysis of Beauty appears Arabella argued argument Burke Burke's century Charlotte Lennox charms civic humanism claims commercial concerned Connoisseur context Cooper corruption critical Crito debate defined described desire discussion display Duchess of Hamilton effeminacy eighteenth eighteenth-century culture elegance Elizabeth Gunning Enquiry Essays exhibition fashion Female Quixote feminine gender grace Gunnings's Hamilton and Argyll Hogarth Hume Hutcheson Ibid idea Imagination J.G.A. Pocock John Barrell John Gilbert Cooper Joseph Spence Joshua Reynolds judgement Kames Lady Lennox Letters London luxury male masculine mid-century middle-class Millenium Hall moral narrator nature novel object Oxford painting particular passion pleasure polite Polymetis portrait public sphere refinement represented Reynolds's Sarah Scott Scott sense sensibility sexual Shaftesbury sister social society Solkin Sophia sought Spectator Spence Spence's Sublime suggests University Press Usher virtue virtuous Walpole Webb William Hogarth woman women writing