Books:
History Sermons Tales Voyages & Travels
Novels Romances Plays
Examine the shelves of books. Some shelves are almost empty: A statement
of subject matter of interest to women readers. What books are desired?
"Romances", "Gothic novels", and "Tales" are by far, of interest. Shelves
of books about "History", "Sermons", and "Voyages & Travels" are completely
full. This is an attack on women: readers with a very limited educational
interest, more interested in arousal and titillation (not serious reading).
Thus this satire of bourgeois women! Reading literature for women reduced
to what is fashionable. Such women might become more aware of their sexual
desires at the cost of not being able to take care of their domestic duties.
Are not these women the empty chatter-boxes to be bought and sold just as
their husbands and thier husbands mistresses are? Empty-headed women, just
as their New World colonies of Black West-Indian slaves (that Cowper writes
about). This is exactly what Jane Austen observes, an observation to be
subtily hidden, else viewed as being subversive of English society and
English west Indian colonies.
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