Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Turkish Embassy letters:a feminist perspective.

Abstract

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was a gifted, insightful, .and witty author in eighteenth-century England. Her most famous work, the Turkish Embassy Letters, is a collection of letters written between 1716 and 1718 in which she addresses her observations of various countries, cultures, and customs during her husband's Embassy to Turkey. Throughout this collection, Lady Mary oversteps the boundaries of decorous behavior for aristocratic women of that time period by addressing issues resserved only for men or issues that were inappropriate for either gender to broach. Even so, she was aware of the literary, social, and cultural value of this work. The indecorous aspects of her observations and opinions are precisely the reason Lady Mary would not allow the publication of the Letters during her lifetime; the awareness of their potential value is her justification for taking steps to insure their publication after her death. This thesis is a feminist analysis of the Turkish Embassy Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Three steps are employed to achieve this analysis. First, a definition of and justification for feminist theory is presented. The result is the selection of a cultural gynocritics approach for this analysis. This first step allows for the next two aspects of this thesis, which include a brief review of the history of women of eighteenth-century England and a review of biographical information on Lady Mary. The history indicates that women were an educationally, professionally, and socially oppressed group. The biographical information discloses that Lady Mary, though not immune to social standards regarding decorum for women of her position, was exceptional in her ability to achieve balance between decorous behavior and her desire to learn and to excel as a writer. The analysis of the Turkish Embassy Letters utilizes the conclusions drawn from the historical and biographical reviews. Cultural gynocriticism provides the justification for utilizing such material. The result is an analysis which reveals why Lady Mary refused to publish the Letters in her lifetime--the subject matter was considered indecorous for an aristocratic woman in England during the eighteenth century. The analysis also reveals that the Turkish Embassy Letters is a cultural document and literary work worthy of recognition.