{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/32043"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/32043","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Natural history and British women writers, 1730-1830","abstract":"The late eighteenth-century poet, Maria Riddell, used zoological hybridity as a racial metaphor for West Indian colonies’ potential to foster “British” national identity, with its mixed heritage and allegiances. This is the subject of my dissertation’s second chapter, and what it shows is that, at a time when women writers did not possess political power, some, such as Riddell, exerted cultural authority through the natural sciences. Natural history (comprising the fields of botany, zoology, and geology) dramatically rose in popularity in the latter half of the eighteenth century. During this time, naturalists drew analogies between natural and social orders, arranging “classes” and “kingdoms” in ways that naturalized cultural and national hierarchies. My manuscript, Natural History and British Women Writers, 1730-1830, argues that women, including Eliza Haywood, Charlotte Smith, and Mary Shelley, often claimed scientific superiority to naturalists to destabilize seemingly fixed identities and revise not only biological but also social and literary taxonomies. For example, my third chapter explores Anna Seward’s development of a literary taxonomy that interrelates biological and poetic forms. Through this attention to women’s scientific literature, my study also casts new light on the period’s debates about literary originality, with important consequences for our understanding of writers such as Alexander Pope, Oliver Goldsmith, William Wordsworth, and Lord Byron.","abstract_html":"The late eighteenth-century poet, Maria Riddell, used zoological hybridity as a racial metaphor for West Indian colonies’ potential to foster “British” national identity, with its mixed heritage and allegiances. This is the subject of my dissertation’s second chapter, and what it shows is that, at a time when women writers did not possess political power, some, such as Riddell, exerted cultural authority through the natural sciences. Natural history (comprising the fields of botany, zoology, and geology) dramatically rose in popularity in the latter half of the eighteenth century. During this time, naturalists drew analogies between natural and social orders, arranging “classes” and “kingdoms” in ways that naturalized cultural and national hierarchies. My manuscript, Natural History and British Women Writers, 1730-1830, argues that women, including Eliza Haywood, Charlotte Smith, and Mary Shelley, often claimed scientific superiority to naturalists to destabilize seemingly fixed identities and revise not only biological but also social and literary taxonomies. For example, my third chapter explores Anna Seward’s development of a literary taxonomy that interrelates biological and poetic forms. Through this attention to women’s scientific literature, my study also casts new light on the period’s debates about literary originality, with important consequences for our understanding of writers such as Alexander Pope, Oliver Goldsmith, William Wordsworth, and Lord Byron.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Bailes, Melissa"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"English","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Underwood, Ted","Markley, Robert","Murison, Justine","Wood, Gillen"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2012,"date_issued":"2012-06-27T21:30:08Z","date_published":"2012-06-27T21:30:08Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:30Z","subjects":["natural history","British women writers","enlightenment","history of science","botany","zoology","Geology","British literature","eighteenth century","Romanticism"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2012 Melissa Bailes"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/32043","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Underwood, Ted","Markley, Robert","Murison, Justine","Wood, Gillen"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Bailes, Melissa"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2012-06-27T21:30:08Z","2018-02-23T10:15:28Z","2012-05"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["English"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["natural history","British women writers","enlightenment","history of science","botany","zoology","Geology","British literature","eighteenth century","Romanticism"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2012 Melissa Bailes"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/32043"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["The late eighteenth-century poet, Maria Riddell, used zoological hybridity as a racial metaphor for West Indian colonies’ potential to foster “British” national identity, with its mixed heritage and allegiances. This is the subject of my dissertation’s second chapter, and what it shows is that, at a time when women writers did not possess political power, some, such as Riddell, exerted cultural authority through the natural sciences. Natural history (comprising the fields of botany, zoology, and geology) dramatically rose in popularity in the latter half of the eighteenth century. During this time, naturalists drew analogies between natural and social orders, arranging “classes” and “kingdoms” in ways that naturalized cultural and national hierarchies. My manuscript, Natural History and British Women Writers, 1730-1830, argues that women, including Eliza Haywood, Charlotte Smith, and Mary Shelley, often claimed scientific superiority to naturalists to destabilize seemingly fixed identities and revise not only biological but also social and literary taxonomies. For example, my third chapter explores Anna Seward’s development of a literary taxonomy that interrelates biological and poetic forms. Through this attention to women’s scientific literature, my study also casts new light on the period’s debates about literary originality, with important consequences for our understanding of writers such as Alexander Pope, Oliver Goldsmith, William Wordsworth, and Lord Byron.","Item withdrawn by Mark Zulauf (zulauf@illinois.edu) on 2012-04-04T20:05:16Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 1 Bailes_Melissa.pdf: 10284160 bytes, checksum: b83e82f3cd4261239f5c47bd79470245 (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2012-06-27T21:30:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Bailes_Melissa.pdf: 10284246 bytes, checksum: d87b9ca8a11c4f93f86e89e3ff8cd031 (MD5) license.txt: 4064 bytes, checksum: 8fd40c2d6ce353faf09f6178ae154ffc (MD5)","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:10:10-05:00 Original Data Group with Access Administrator Release Date: 2016-07-10 09:30:12 UTC Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system. Request to extend closed access approved by Graduate College 2014-03-10 sshreeve","Item marked as restricted to the 'Administrator' Group (id=1) by William Ingram (wingram2@illinois.edu) on 2012-06-27T21:32:43Z Item is restricted until 2014-06-27T21:32:23Z","Item marked as restricted to the 'Administrator' Group (id=1) by Sarah Shreeves (sshreeve@illinois.edu) on 2014-03-10T14:30:12Z Item is restricted until 2016-07-10T14:30:12Z","U of I Only Restriction Lifted for Item 32308 on 2018-02-23T10:15:28Z."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Natural history and British women writers, 1730-1830"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Underwood, Ted","Markley, Robert","Murison, Justine","Wood, Gillen"],"dc:creator":["Bailes, Melissa"],"dc:date":["2012-06-27T21:30:08Z","2018-02-23T10:15:28Z","2012-05"],"dc:description":["The late eighteenth-century poet, Maria Riddell, used zoological hybridity as a racial metaphor for West Indian colonies’ potential to foster “British” national identity, with its mixed heritage and allegiances. This is the subject of my dissertation’s second chapter, and what it shows is that, at a time when women writers did not possess political power, some, such as Riddell, exerted cultural authority through the natural sciences. Natural history (comprising the fields of botany, zoology, and geology) dramatically rose in popularity in the latter half of the eighteenth century. During this time, naturalists drew analogies between natural and social orders, arranging “classes” and “kingdoms” in ways that naturalized cultural and national hierarchies. My manuscript, Natural History and British Women Writers, 1730-1830, argues that women, including Eliza Haywood, Charlotte Smith, and Mary Shelley, often claimed scientific superiority to naturalists to destabilize seemingly fixed identities and revise not only biological but also social and literary taxonomies. For example, my third chapter explores Anna Seward’s development of a literary taxonomy that interrelates biological and poetic forms. Through this attention to women’s scientific literature, my study also casts new light on the period’s debates about literary originality, with important consequences for our understanding of writers such as Alexander Pope, Oliver Goldsmith, William Wordsworth, and Lord Byron.","Item withdrawn by Mark Zulauf (zulauf@illinois.edu) on 2012-04-04T20:05:16Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 1 Bailes_Melissa.pdf: 10284160 bytes, checksum: b83e82f3cd4261239f5c47bd79470245 (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2012-06-27T21:30:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Bailes_Melissa.pdf: 10284246 bytes, checksum: d87b9ca8a11c4f93f86e89e3ff8cd031 (MD5) license.txt: 4064 bytes, checksum: 8fd40c2d6ce353faf09f6178ae154ffc (MD5)","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:10:10-05:00 Original Data Group with Access Administrator Release Date: 2016-07-10 09:30:12 UTC Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system. Request to extend closed access approved by Graduate College 2014-03-10 sshreeve","Item marked as restricted to the 'Administrator' Group (id=1) by William Ingram (wingram2@illinois.edu) on 2012-06-27T21:32:43Z Item is restricted until 2014-06-27T21:32:23Z","Item marked as restricted to the 'Administrator' Group (id=1) by Sarah Shreeves (sshreeve@illinois.edu) on 2014-03-10T14:30:12Z Item is restricted until 2016-07-10T14:30:12Z","U of I Only Restriction Lifted for Item 32308 on 2018-02-23T10:15:28Z."],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/32043"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2012 Melissa Bailes"],"dc:subject":["natural history","British women writers","enlightenment","history of science","botany","zoology","Geology","British literature","eighteenth century","Romanticism"],"dc:title":["Natural history and British women writers, 1730-1830"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["English"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:30Z"}