The Witlings, Frances Burney’s first play (1779), has a history of garnering negative criticism. From the moment it was written, it was considered to be improper – notably by Burney’s father and Samuel Crisp, who sent her a ‘Hissing, groaning, catcalling Epistle’[i] to persuade her not to have it staged. In more recent years too, it has been criticised for giving a negative representation of women, and therefore being too conservative. It has only been staged twice.[ii]
As a feminist critic, it is easy to see why Burney’s play about a group of small-minded, pretentious women might not be the most popular. When reading it for the first time, I was inclined to agree with Burney Senior in his opinion that this was quite a mean-spirited piece of writing which would have made her unpopular with other women writers. Her decision to make fun of women who are interested in education and literature seems particularly puzzling, given that she was a literary woman herself.
It is, however, important not to read the play in isolation. When compared to plays by other female playwrights, The Witlings starts to make more sense, and when we consider the theatre culture of the late eighteenth century, Burney’s decisions can be seen in a different light.
In particular, I would like to look more closely at the figure of the ‘intellectual woman’. In the play, there are three of them – the female half of the Witlings, Lady Smatter, Mrs. Sapient, and Mrs. Voluble. As is obvious from their names, they are not truly intellectual; they only pretend to be, while in reality being more talk than actual knowledge. It has been said that they are a satire of the famous Bluestockings, in particular of Elizabeth Montague.[iii] While it may be true that Burney’s acquaintance with the Bluestocking group provided her with some inspiration, the ‘pseudo-intellectual woman’ was a firmly established stock character in comedy at the time, and this character was used particularly by women writers.
First, we will need a definition of the ‘intellectual woman’, so that we can identify her. She is usually middle-aged or older, comfortably middle-class (like Mrs. Sapient and Mrs. Voluble) or upper class (like Lady Smatter). She is outspoken about her intellectual interests, and defines herself by them. She may have a husband and children, but if she does, she does not seem to be very interested in them, and they rarely feature in her conversation.
The older intellectual woman serves as comic relief, while the young and beautiful heroine occupies the main plot, similar to the dynamic between Nurse and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. Burney’s female Witlings do sometimes get involved in ‘proper’ female pursuits (such as visiting Mrs. Wheedle’s milliner’s shop, or taking an interest in Cecilia’s marriage), but they spend most of their time thinking and talking about literature. Even if they are not very good at it, this behaviour sets them apart from other women in the play – it is telling that Cecilia, the romantic heroine, never participates in their discussions, and is also decidedly not funny.
Often, a joke is particularly good because it sets up one expectation and then subverts it. In the case of these plays, the fact that women are interested in unfeminine topics is the unexpected punch line.
Essentially, what the issue comes down to is ‘character’. Whether the focus is education, social awareness, or sexuality, the problem is that these women are generally too passionate, too serious, too loud. It is no coincidence that a great deal of Act IV of The Witlings is taken up by a discussion of the line ‘Most Women have no Character at all’ (Act 4, l. 47). The debate about the meaning of this sentence neatly encapsulates the issues Burney and other female playwrights are trying to draw attention to. Lady Smatter interprets it as referring to a woman’s reputation, that is, her public character. Mr Codger tries to correct her on this, but his constant insistence on setting her right on such a trivial matter is incredibly patronising. Lady Smatter resents the idea that he is somehow more qualified to comment on literature, especially given that she regards Pope as her specialist subject: ‘it’s rather a hard case that, after so many years of intense study, and most laborious reading, I am not allowed to criticise a silly line of Pope’ (Act 4, ll. 154/155). Given what we know about her, the ‘intense study’ is probably an exaggeration, but her point still stands: Codger is no more qualified than her to comment on literature, and yet he assumes the authority to do so. Her reference to not being ‘allowed’ is telling. It seems that more than being told she is wrong, she resents being told she cannot have her own point of view; when Codger tries to tell what the line means in his opinion, she says sarcastically, ‘O dear Sir, don’t trouble yourself to tell me his meaning; – I dare say I shall be able to make it out’ (Act 4, ll. 115/116). Her spirited defence of her right to misinterpret poetry on her own terms is part of the problem: ironically, she has too much character. The size of her personality overshadows most of the other characters in the play, and this is why she is inappropriate. Women like her are, indeed, not meant to have much character at all, but she refuses to be silent, to be domestic, and to be self-effacing. She is clearly the most interesting character of the play, and her personality, while not being in any way kind or admirable, is certainly memorable.
She, and other characters like her, are the complete opposite of the romantic heroine in 18th- century comedy. The young, beautiful women who marry at the end of the play, are indeed often relatively character-less; their plotline is already fixed at the start of the play, because every comedy has to end in marriage. They frequently seem quite interchangeable, most Cecilias, Belindas, and Emilys being equally pretty and accomplished. In contrast, the Lady Smatters and Mrs Winifreds dominate their scenes, and while they do not get rewarded for this at the end of the plays, it is likely that they are the characters who would have been most popular with the audience.
Critics like Betty Rizzo have pointed out that the theatre was a popular and socially acceptable entertainment for women, and that they would commonly go there with other women, such as their companions or female relatives.[iv] If we combine this fact with the need for both leisure time and money to see a play, it is likely that a large part of the female part of the audience would have been made up of middle-class, middle-aged women. In other words, the ‘intellectual woman’ on stage was a satirical figure that spoke directly to, and about, many of the people who watched her. Burney was only 27 when she wrote The Witlings, but it is very possible that her satire comes from a concern over her own future as an intellectual woman, as well as from her personal acquaintance with the Bluestockings, who were mostly older than her. In that sense, it is true that her play is indeed inspired by the Bluestocking circle, but not in the way her ‘two daddies’ probably saw it. Rather, her observation of how other women reacted to pressures about gender, age, and education gave her an insight into how easily even the most sensible woman can become a Lady Smatter. She was simply unlucky in that her own personal Mr Censors prevented her from displaying her own character, and characters, on the public stage.
[i] Burney, Frances, The Witlings, in Peter Sabor and Tristanne Cooke (eds.) The Complete Plays of Frances Burney (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 1-102, p. xviii
[ii] Burney, Frances, The Witlings, in Peter Sabor and Tristanne Cooke (eds.) The Complete Plays of Frances Burney (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 1-102, p. 5
[iii] Darby, Barbara, Frances Burney, Dramatist: Gender, Performance, and the Late Eighteenth-century Stage (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1997), p. 24
[iv] cf. Rizzo, Betty, Companions Without Vows: Relationships among Eighteenth-century British Women (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994), p. 28
The Women's Playhouse 