Talk:Eliza Haywood

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I took out the Pope connection in the photo caption, but left the discussion of Haywood's feature in The Dunciad intact in the Critical Reception section. Though her Dunciad connection exists, I feel that it should not be the first bit of information someone recieves of her. The note from Geogre below "the question is how readers of the encyclopedia will hear the name and seek the account" is interesting. My first encounter of Haywood was not in The Dunciad; she is now considered to be a significant figure of the 18th century for reasons beyond Pope (see article). I wonder about the premise of writing an encyclopedia article based on where we think someone heard her name and do not think that should be the basis of what is said in the article. --Susiebowers 01:16, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ambiguity in accounts

Haywood gave conflicting information, but so did Behn, so did Robert Wilks, Susannah Centlivre, inter al. It was pretty common for actresses and actors, in particular, to embellish or invent their biographies, and it was even more common for biographers to simply make stuff up. Therefore, we cannot conclude that there was a desire for privacy, especially in a woman this public and unafraid of public scandal (her affair with Hatchett). What's far more likely is that she considered her biography either irrelevant or part of the public relations campaign necessary for creating the public persona. In an age that did not believe that "the child is father to the man," biography and autobiography were extremely unreliable. This is even more the case with women who married early or who were suspected of loose morality. Geogre 11:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

That is a really good point. (Susie)

[edit] Literary Dunce?

Although Pope’s printed denunciation of Haywood is significant in terms of defining the contemporary literary and social climate, it seems to detract from Haywood's career and person that the entire article is headlined by an image with the inscription, “…the same time that Alexander Pope was describing her as…” which presents Haywood as secondary in her own Wikipedia entry. She is defined at the outset by her relationship to a male literary figure. Should she not be defined by her own literary merits first, I wonder?

(Susie)

• That's a valid point, but the question is how readers of the encyclopedia will hear the name and seek the account. If we think that she's more famous as a dunce than a novelist, which was my view as a Popian, then we go that way. If we think that she's more known and studied now as a novelist (and it's certainly arguable), then probably not. However, for anyone who has been reading about her in Dunciad, the portrait is important because of Pope's "cow like udders and ox-like eyes" physical insult (one of the very few physical insults he uses; it makes me think that there is an undiscovered anecdote where Haywood made fun of Pope's size, as he so very rarely talks about how people look). Also, the caption sets the stage straight off: This is a person who is not like Pope's image of her. I.e. you can read it as a challenge to any preconception coming from Pope. Geogre 01:53, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

• While I'm here, the category I created of "literary dunce" was non-judgmental. There is an entire coterie there, and I think a person (and say this on the category page) has to be actually kind of good to fall into the category. The really lightweight and vaccuous dunces don't rate a mention in Pope and Swift and Dryden. What I wanted was a category that caught everyone who was characterized as a dunce by any of the satirists of the 18th century, irrespective of Pope but primarily among the Scriblerians. I had just gotten all of the ones from Dunciad in, and I'm going to sooner or later start going back through Swift. Most of Dryden's figures (Absalom and Achitophel) have articles already. Geogre 01:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I can see how it is a significant point to notice that Pope insulted her physique- a very uncommon thing for him to do given that he was conscious of his own physical body and did not want to draw attention to it. Perhaps, then, that point could be mentioned very briefly here in the article: Haywood was uncommonly highlighted physically and sexually (“cow-like udders”) by Pope. Her “dunce-ness” comes from her body whereas most male writers were “dunced” for being dull or something else relating to intellect. --Susiebowers 13:14, 30 October 2006 (UTC)