• "Our Coquettes is smoothly written, elegantly
argued, and provocative. In Braunschneider’s telling, the
coquette is of interest not simply for what she tells us about early
eighteenth-century English standards of female virtue. The coquette
also stands for a world of expanding choices: in marriage, in consumer
goods, in public spaces. This focus on the modernity of choice is
quite fresh."—Sophia Rosenfeld, University of Virginia
•"Braunschneider makes an important contribution to
our understanding of eighteenth-century English (and Anglo-American)
thought and culture in her study of coquetry as a way of negotiating
the meanings of modernity, particularly as she ties coquetry to
ideologies of consumerism and gender. Her historical treatment of
the word and concept of coquetry is extremely valuable. Our
Coquettes is well-written and engaging."—Dickson
Bruce, University of California, Irvine
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Our Coquettes:
Capacious Desire in the Eighteenth Century |
| |
| Theresa Braunschneider |
| 208 pages, 6 x 9 |
| Cloth 978-0-8139-2809-8 • $39.50 |
| April 2009 |
 |
Before 1660, English readers and theatergoers had never heard
of a "coquette"; by the early 1700s, they could hardly
watch a play, read a poem, or peruse a newspaper without encountering
one. Why does British literature of this period pay so much attention
to vain and flirtatious young women? Our Coquettes examines
the ubiquity of the coquette in the eighteenth century to show
how this figure enables authors to comment upon a series of significant
social and economic developments—including the growth of
consumer culture, widespread new wealth, increased travel and
global trade, and changes in the perception and practice of marriage.
The book surveys stage comedies, periodical essays, satirical
poems, popular songs, and didactic novels to show that the early
coquette is a figure of capacious desire: she finds pleasure in
a wide range of choices, refusing to narrow any field of possibilities
(admirers, luxury goods, friends, pets, public gatherings) down
to a single option. Whereas scholars of the period have generally
read the coquette as a simple and self-evident type, Our Coquettes
emphasizes what is strange and surprising about this figure, revealing
the coquette to be a touchstone in developing discourses about
sexuality, consumerism, empire, and modernity itself.
Winner of the Walker Cowen Memorial Prize for an outstanding
work of scholarship in eighteenth-century studies
Theresa Braunschneider is Associate Professor
of English at Washington and Lee University.
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