SOURCE: Bartolomeo, Joseph F. “Female Quixotism v. ‘Feminine’ Tragedy: Lennox's Comic Revision of Clarissa.” In New Essays on Samuel Richardson, edited by Albert J. Rivero, pp. 163-75. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996.

In the following essay, Bartolomeo deliberates on the intertextual relationship between The Female Quixote and Samuel Richardson's novels.

In regard to gender and eighteenth-century fiction, one of the largest obstacles to essentialism is the career of Samuel Richardson, whose plots, characters and narrative techniques both defined and constricted possibilities for women writers. An examination of his influence on one of his most accomplished admirers, Charlotte Lennox, appears to undermine essentialism even further. Although Lennox accepted Richardson's artistic advice while writing The Female Quixote and his practical assistance in publishing it,¹ she eschewed such Richardsonian devices as the epistolary method, an emphasis on love and passion and an abundance of moral sentiments—devices commonly associated with “feminine...