The Literary Year 1719: A Gendered Approach. Love in Excess vs. Robinson Crusoe
The Literary Year 1719: A Gendered Approach. Love in Excess vs. Robinson Crusoe

Summary/Abstract: This article is meant to challenge the well-known belief – I could even say prejudice – that Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe is the first novel in English literature. The gatekeepers of the literary canon and renown have neglected for a long time the literary activity and pre-eminence of Eliza Haywood. The thorough analysis of the two novels reveals that while Robinson Crusoe foreshadows the Victorian virtues, Eliza Haywood’s Love of Excess is an amatory novel written by a woman. Gender prejudice combined with genre prejudice led to Haywood’s continuous effacement from the literary history for a very long time. It is only in the 1960’s and 1970’s that the new generation of literary critics took serious interest in women writers’ works, and in Haywood’s work, in particular. The conclusion of this article is that the British novel has two parents: a man, Defoe, and a woman, Haywood.

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