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In:News with an Attitude: Ideological perspectives in the historical press
Edited by Claudia Claridge
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 105] 2025
► pp. 156–176

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Chapter 8
Female-male relations in letters to the editor in The Orphan Reviv'd: or, Powell’s Weekly Journal (1719–1720)

 | University of Florence
Published online: 16 January 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.105.08bro
Abstract
This chapter examines the discursive realisation of female-male relations in letters to the editor (LTEs) in Elizabeth Powell’s The Orphan Reviv'd: or, Powell’s Weekly Journal (1719–1720) and four other early eighteenth-century newspapers. LTEs about female-male relations in the Orphan Reviv'd are rarely neutral in tone with evaluation evident and marked linguistically in various ways. Much of the correspondence expresses a sympathetic viewpoint of women’s condition in their relations with men. However, this positive evaluation is modified by two important considerations. First, the role of women is refracted through a male prism as seen in the discursive focus on male behaviour. Secondly, when women unreservedly express agency it is viewed negatively since it reflects unacceptable features of male behaviour.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Female-male relations in the periodical press (1691–1719)
    • 2.11691–1712
    • 2.21712–1719
  • 3.Female-Male relations in Elizabeth Powell’s Orphan Reviv'd
    • 3.1Elizabeth Powell
    • 3.2Theoretical framework
    • 3.3Power and conquest
    • 3.4Naming
    • 3.5Entertainment
  • 4.Female-male relations in the management of the Orphan Reviv'd
  • 5.Female-male relations in letters to the editor in four other weeklies (1719–1720)
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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