Confessions of a Reader

[image is from Stuff No One Told Me]

I have a confession to make.  I’m only halfway through my text, MMMB.  And by halfway, I mean I’ve read the first two informal sections, entries one through forty-eight.  There are one hundred and twenty six entries in MMMB.  But that’s what tomorrow and Saturday are for – on Friday I’ll read the third informal section (49-70) and on Saturday, the fourth and final section (71-126).  In between reading MMMB, I will read Rich’s “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” and Smith-Rosenberg’s "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America."  These three readings are my goal for Friday and Saturday.  For someone who normally tears through texts at breakneck speed, I am having trouble concentrating while reading MMMB.  I stayed at home today instead of going to the UCF Library, and I think that was my mistake.  I let myself be distracted by laundry (four loads, ugh), cleaning up the kitchen, cooking dinner, etc.  So, tomorrow, I’m going to brace myself for a marathon of reading and get it done….with the help of Eight O’Clock vanilla iced coffee (thanks Jessica for the coffee recommendation!).

So far, my favorite entry is Hannah Griffitt’s “To Sophronia.  In answer to some Lines she directed to be wrote on my Fan.  1769. —by the same” (entry 39).  It’s short, so I’m going to type it out in its entirety.  I love the Griffitt’s wit and tone, and her gentle rejection of her friend’s advice and/or urging to marry.  I hope you like it too.

To Sophronia.  In answer to some Lines she directed to be wrote on my Fan.  1769. —by the same

I’ve neither Reserve or aversion to Man,

            (I assure you Sophronia in jingle)

But to keep my dear Liberty, long as I can,

            Is the Reason I chuse to live single,

My Sense, or the Want of it —free you may jest                   [5]

            And censure, dispise, or impeach,

But the Happiness center’d within my own Breast,

            Is luckily out of yr. reach.

The Men, (as a Friend) I prefer, I esteem,

            And love them as well as I ought                               [10]

But to fix all my Happiness, soley in Him

            Was never my Wish or my Thought,

The cowardly Nymph, you so often reprove,

            Is not frightened by *Giants like these,

Leave me to enjoy the sweet Freedom I love                         [15]

            And go marry —as soon as you please.

Fidelia 

[Marginal note:]

*The satirical Sneers thrown on the single Life.—

Footnote:

47. To Sophronia: The name “Sophronia” does not seem to have a specific Greek association, but it was recognized as connoting an unmarried woman.  Griffitts wrote at least one other poem “To Sophronia” on the subject of marriage (“The Maid’s Husband,” Hazard’s Register 9 ([January-July 1832]: 238); and an essayist in Father Abraham’s Almanack for 1772 [Philadelphia, 1771] expounded on the reasons why “the sagacious Sophronia remains unmarried.”  (MMMB 173-174)

 

The feedback I received from Dr. Logan on my preliminary bibliography has been extremely helpful as well.  I’ll post about that sometime on Sunday.  I’ll leave you all with a list of books I’ve recently purchased from Amazon, some of which are for this project, and others are for future classes (hopefully).

1. Feminist Studies / Critical Studies (Theories of Contemporary Culture) (Teresa de Lauretis)
2. Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 (Laurel Thatcher Ulrich)
3. Sister's Choice: Traditions and Change in American Women's Writing (Elaine Showalter)
4. Memory's Daughters: The Material Culture of Remembrance in Eighteenth-Century America (Susan Stabile)
5. Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (Eve Sedgwick)
6. Rhetorical Drag: Gender Impersonation, Captivity, and the Writing of History (Lorrayne Carroll)
7. Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction (Theories of Representation and Difference) (Teresa de Lauretis)
8. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Judith Butler)
9. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction 1790-1860 (Jane P. Tompkins)

Now, you’ll have to excuse me as my blueberry pie is done in the oven, and I’m going to relax by watching Lindsay’s recommendation, Stage Beauty.

Works Cited:

Blecki, Catherine L., and Karin A. Wulf, eds. Milcah Martha Moore's Book: a Commonplace Book from Revolutionary America. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP, 1997. Print.