DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/A5V3-TJ42
Defense Date
2011
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
English
First Advisor
Rivka Swenson
Abstract
“Judging the Rational and the Dead: Ann Radcliffe and Feminist Theology” argues Radcliffe’s first three novels, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (1789), A Sicilian Romance (1790), and The Romance of the Forest (1791), show a progression of feminist theology informed by the late eighteenth-century British religious movement of Rational Dissent. The thesis attempts to complicate and extend Radcliffe scholarship by moving away from fractured critical discourses and into more cohesive readings of Radcliffe that include feminist and theological interpretations of her work. Of particular interest to the project are Radcliffe’s views on the circumscribed nature of women’s existence within British notions of church and state. The thesis does more than attempt to note Radcliffe’s objections to the circumscribed nature of women in British society; it also seeks to explore the potential solutions offered by a feminist theology that rejects establishment religious hierarchies in favor of a more Unitarian system.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
May 2011