Feminist Critical Approaches to the Eighteenth-Century English Novel

ABSTRACT The relevance of the research is conditioned by the fact that though the traditional narrative of the eighteenth-century English novel was associated with male writers, such authors as Charlotte Smith, Frances Burney, and Jane Austen became increasingly authoritative in the genre. Feminism is a complex issue and causes numerous discussions. The leading methods for studying this problem are analysis, classification, comparison, induction, and deduction, which will help to identify and highlight literary and gender features in the eighteenth-century novel. The works of women authors were discovered, whose achievements were systematically hushed up; the main questions in the field of eighteenth-century gender studies are considered; the relationship between the English novel and gender differences is shown.