ABSTRACT
Women’s didactic ction of the late eighteenth century largely acted as a form of political dialogue; nevertheless, part of that political and gendered discussion was a self-conscious inquiry into the nature, use, and value of ctional modes. As Hilary Havens points out, the didactic novel and its conduct-book cousin are the single genre seen to be grudgingly acceptable for both women writers and readers: novels should be either instructional or avoided. Still, as Morgan Rooney and others in this collection aptly demonstrate, the didactic novel was an excellent form to embed or disguise complex or subversive views not easily expressed in other venues.1 And, as Havens notes, some ‘female novelists used the didactic genre to criticize constricting conceptions of virtuous women’.2 Additionally – as the survey of the eighteenth-century novel’s didacticism in the introduction to this volume makes obvious – the potential subversion of more overt forms of instruction readily existed as part of the novel’s history. Complex generic opportunities existed along with the accompanying constraint, and sometimes a subtlety of approach expanded the potential limitations of the so-called didactic novel. On the surface, the lurking question was a simple one: If, as the standard complaint went, ction was potentially a dangerous, misleading, or worthless pursuit, why write ‘better’ novels or engage with the form at all?
