Masquerade (Bowdoin, )

History/GWS 249 Reading Guide

Text:

Hannah Foster (1758-1840), The Coquette, or The History of Eliza Wharton; A Novel; Founded on Fact (1797).

Questions:

To what audience was Foster writing? How did her perceived audience shape her telling of the story? To what extent is the story also about that audience?
Why did Foster use letters to tell the story? What kind of voices did this give her to work with?
Is this a masquerade—a novel masquerading as history? Or is it a novel masquerading as a novel masquerading as history? How does The Coquette contrast with the typical masquerade? Was Eliza a typical heroine? Did Foster show virtuous women being rewarded?
How does this “novel” present and critique the choices and options that women had in their lives?
What was the cause of Eliza’s “downfall”?
Why did Foster denounce novels as “dangerous” (1798, quoted in Kerber, p. 239)? As Cathy Davidson asks, “How does one grant a voice to a woman who, given the society in which the novel is written and read, enjoys neither voice nor privilege?” (xix).