Liberating Conversations
John Stuart Mill and Mona Caird
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12880298 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Demelza Hookway (University of Exeter, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 11 |
| Pages | 873-883 |
| Publication date | 2012-11-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Literature Compass (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1741-4113 • E-ISSN: 1741-4113 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2012.00911.x |
| OpenAlex | W1882751822 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 8 |
This essay considers how the New Woman writer Mona Caird engaged with John Stuart Mill’s ideas on liberty of discussion. It offers a brief history of Caird scholarship and considers the importance of free discussion to fin‐de‐siècle New Woman debates. It outlines four elements of Millian philosophy which Caird draws on in her fictional depictions of conversation: male‐female friendship, independent thought, self‐development, and a quest for precision in word choice and usage. Finally, it traces these elements through Caird’s novels and short stories, charting a development from her nineteenth‐century fiction – which focuses on private discussion in upper‐class domestic settings – to her twentieth‐century novels – which consider directly how private conversational practices translate into political and scientific discussion groups open to a greater diversity of participants
Archaeology · Art · Linguistics · Literature · Mill · Psychoanalysis · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · History · Legal and Social Philosophy · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Psychology
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2025 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |