English Language and Literature ETDs
Publication Date
Summer 7-14-2019
Abstract
My dissertation traces a term I call the “chaotic domestic” in the writing of a collection of eighteenth-century women laboring-class writers: Mary Barber, Mary Collier, Mary Leapor, Ann Yearsley, and Janet Little. The chaotic domestic in the hands of these writers is multi-layered and affect-driven, focusing as they do on issues regarding nation, class, and gender. As both a poetic trope and the seeming natural and dynamic state of the domestic sphere, the image of the domestic that this set of writers represents and defines is turbulent, unruly, and one that deals with the tangled web of local and global, public and private, gendered and classist identity politics. Most importantly, I seek to demonstrate how the chaotic domestic serves as something these writers do to subvert class and gender systems that affect their public and private lives.
Degree Name
English
Level of Degree
Doctoral
Department Name
English
First Committee Member (Chair)
Dr. Gail Houston
Second Committee Member
Dr. Carolyn Woodward
Third Committee Member
Dr. Pamela Cheek
Fourth Committee Member
Dr. Donna Landry
Language
English
Keywords
laboring-class poetry, women writers, eighteenth century, eighteenth-century poetry, domesticity, domestic, Ireland, England, Scotland, affect
Document Type
Dissertation
Recommended Citation
Hunnings, Kelly J.. "THE CHAOTIC DOMESTIC: TRACING AFFECT IN REPRESENTATIONS OF NATION, CLASS, AND GENDER IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LABORING-CLASS WOMEN’S WRITING." (2019). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/engl_etds/273
