Constructing Place in Oroonoko
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2014
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315583969
Abstract
This chapter demonstrates that in The Young Philosopher, as in the poetry that preceded it, Charlotte Smith uses the coastline as a powerfully symbolic space for the exploration of the relationship between female identity and patriarchal authority in its various manifestations. Charlotte Smith grew up and lived most of her life in the South Downs region of southern England; the landscapes of that area permeate her poetry and her novels, and she has been described as a regional poet. Smith draws attention to her own fragile emotional and psychological health through this intertextual reference, and alerts us to the suffering that accompanies poetic composition; in doing so she uses Warton as a connecting thread which binds her to Laura. Charlotte Smith was writing in a period which saw increasing popular interest in the British coastline and the emergence of a dual tradition of practice and representation in relation to it.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Constructing Place in Oronooko, in M. Narain & K. Gevertz (Eds.), Gender and Space in British Literature, 1660-1820, Routledge, p. 19-32
Scholar Commons Citation
Runge, Laura, "Constructing Place in Oroonoko" (2014). English Faculty Publications. 90.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/eng_facpub/90
