Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote

Charlotte Lennox. The Female Quixote [1752]. (Edited with Notes by Amanda Gilroy and Wil Verhoeven. Introduction by Amanda Gilroy). Londres, Penguin (Penguin Classics), 2006.

Start by reading The Female Quixote in the set edition, including the preface. It is a long novel that you will need to read twice: the first time in order to grasp the linear plot development, followed by a second, more critical reading, to tease out the thematic patterns, repetitions, oppositions, motifs etc. (This is true for all the literary texts on the programme).

You can also listen to the novel here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/01-book-1-chapter-1/id382694776?i=1000541783364

You can do word searches in the online etext that that can be uploaded here: 

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50054

The best general introduction to eighteenth-century literature is Charlotte Sussman’s Eighteenth Century English Literature (Oxford: Wiley, 2013). 

Here are few podcasts to listen to over the summer. They offer some background about the historiography of eighteenth-century literature and the “forgotten” women writers of the period.

https://play.acast.com/s/hiddenhistories/hh-1.1-rewritingthenovel 

It is also crucial to be familiar with the hypotext to Lennox’s hypertext, Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote. In French, Cervantes, Miguel de. L’Ingénieux hidalgo Don Quichotte de la Manche. Trad. Aline Schulman, préface Jean-Claude Chevalier. 2 vols. Paris : Seuil, 1997.

Don Quixote is a long text that you may not have time to read but the following podcasts provide invaluable insight:

·       the BBC’s ‘In Our Time’ podcast with Melvyn Bragg: on Don Quixote  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p003hydl

·       the recent Radio France podcast with William Marx: https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/podcasts/un-ete-avec-don-quichotte