The Cloaked Actress in Evelina and The Wanderer
Bethany Wong, Whittier College
Abstract
This essay revisits the apparent opposition between theater and the novel as well as the public actress and private heroine to identify what I call “virtuous theatricality” in Frances Burney’s conception of authorship. This term celebrates her complex appreciation for, and appropriation of, the theater and role playing in her novels. Building on recent work about celebrity actresses by Laura Engel, Felicity Nussbaum, Gill Perry, and others, I argue that Burney’s construction of authorial identity recalls the professional actress’s skillful negotiation between her public and private personas. Focusing on Burney’s treatment of actresses implicitly in Evelina and explicitly in The Wanderer, I consider how Frances Abington’s and Elizabeth Farren’s acts of self-fashioning in portraits and during private theatricals frame Burney’s depictions of virtuous femininity. I contend that the allusions to actresses in the novels are not attempts to forget them but to suggest ways that Burney is strategically aligning herself with them. Throughout her life, Burney was an enthusiastic audience member, a reluctant actress, a shy celebrity, a dramatic novelist, and a gifted playwright. These roles manifest creatively in her work as her heroines literally and metaphorically go to the theater to legitimize their virtue before a skeptical male audience.
Keywords
Burney, Frances, 1752-1840; The Wanderer; Evelina; 18th-century English literature; Abington, Mrs. (Frances Barton), 1737-1815; Farren, Elizabeth, 1762-1829; actress; celebrity; novel; theater; gender; virtue; authorship.
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