A Heroine Addiction

Love and the Law in The Female Quixote Winner of the Griffith Law Review Student Essay Prize 2004

Bibliographic Data

ID14970946
AuthorsAnna Farmer (0000-0002-8238-2537, corresponding author)
Year2004
Volume13
Issue2
Pages233-254
Publication date2004-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGriffith Law Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1038-3441 • E-ISSN: 1839-4205
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10383441.2004.10854543
OpenAlexW779735511
LanguageEN
References cited15

This paper explores the intersections of love and the law as they appear in Charlotte Lennox’s 1752 novel The Female Quixote. Criticised in literary circles for its treatment of the romance, it is argued that Lennox’s satirical narrative has a more serious generic and legal argument, articulated in the constructed fantasies of her heroine, Arabella. Drawing on Peter Goodrich’s writings on the Courts of Love and Luce Irigarary’s work on the ‘hysteric’, this article looks to illustrate the way in which the patriarchal legal order has defined the limits of love within society, positioning it ultimately as an imaginary jurisdiction indulged in ‘by the follies of the feminine mind’. By providing an account of how law functions and is represented within society, it argues that the novel seeks to expose this entrenched repression of the female (body [of law]) throughout history

Argument (complex analysis · Art · Jurisdiction · Literature · Narrative · Order (exchange · Political science · Psychoanalysis · Romance · Sociology · The Imaginary · Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies · Philosophy · Psychology

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