Fanny Burney's three eighteenth-century romances : Evelina, Cecelia, and Camilla

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Martha Gleaton Brown (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
James E. Evans

Abstract: Although the novels of Fanny Burney were highly regarded in their own time, modern critical assessments frequently conclude them to be flawed by contrived plots, flat, static characters, artificial language, and didacticism. These criticisms clearly trace to a modern insistence on realism as the defining quality of good fiction. This study contends that Burney's novels, like most eighteenth-century fiction, are deeply indebted to the romance tradition and so are not answerable to critical evaluations that use realism as the only yardstick. In fact, Burney's fiction cannot be fully understood or appreciated until it is placed in its appropriate context and viewed as a synthesis of older romance concerns and techniques and newer realistic ones.

Additional Information

Publication
Dissertation
Language: English
Date: 1980
Subjects
Burney, Fanny, $d 1752-1840 $x Criticism and interpretation
Burney, Fanny, $d 1752-1840. $t Camilla
Burney, Fanny, $d 1752-1840. $t Evelina
Burney, Fanny, $d 1752-1840. $t Cecelia

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