English, Literature, and Modern Languages Faculty Publications

"She Knew No One with Sufficient Intimacy": Female Friendship in Camilla and Hester Chapone's Letters on the Improvement of the Mind

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2020

Journal Title

Burney Journal

ISSN

1480-6320

Volume

17

First Page

42

Last Page

60

Abstract

This article suggests that Frances Burney’s Camilla dramatizes and critiques the advice on female friendship given by fellow Bluestocking Hester Chapone in her conduct book Letters on the Improvement of the Mind. Burney’s critiques affirm the importance of affective relationships between women, despite the criticisms these relationships received from contemporary male conduct book writers, such as James Fordyce and John Gregory. Camilla’s three main friendships with Mrs. Arlbery, Mrs. Berlinton, and Lady Isabella closely correspond to types of friends Chapone outlines in Letters: the older friend, the adulterous friend, and the ideal friend. Camilla’s complex responses to each type of friend reveal that while Burney affirmed parts of Chapone’s advice, she also weighed it against her own experience. The realist novel, rather than the conduct book, takes center stage in Burney’s work as the genre best able to depict the nuances of the human heart.

Keywords

Frances Burney, Hester Chapone, female friendships, affective relationships, women's literature, conduct books, Camilla, Letters on the Improvement of the Mind

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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