Abstract

Amanda Ramirez

Abstract

March 3, 2011

Shurter, Robert L. "Mrs. Hannah Webster Foster and the Early American Novel." American Literature 4.3 (2002): 306. Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 Feb. 2011.

Abstract:

            This article provides an overview of both of Hannah Webster Foster’s novels, The Boarding school, and The Coquette. The fact that The Coquette was more readily accepted than The Boarding school is explained, as is the author’s life during, and after her authorship. The influence of Foster is explored, both in the literary realm, and on other significant literary experts such as Phinneus Adams. This displays that this female author had an affect on men who became considered literary experts. This critic uses articles from newspapers written when the author was alive as a source of evidence in the article. I would recommend this article because it gives the reader more insight to the characteristics of The Boarding School, through describing why it was not as readily accepted as Foster’s previous novel.

            The one thing I felt the critic overlooked in the article was Foster’s own education and how that affected her opinions on female education as displayed in her novels.

This article is significant to my research, because I want the focus of my paper to be on the affect of this female author on a formerly male dominion, and how she subtly achieved this by; not over publishing, and providing a female viewpoint on education through the structure of her novel, The Boarding School. I also want my paper to explore what about this time in the eighteenth century that prevented the novel from being readily accepted by society, when Foster’s previous novel was very popular by comparison (The article states that 19 editions were printed). The article also gave me insight to the style of writing Foster employs by comparing her two novels. The most compelling points in the article were those concerning the men Foster influenced and the manor in which her novels were accepted by the society in which she lived.