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Staged Insensibility in Burney's Cecilia, Camilla, and The Wanderer: How a Playwright Writes Novels Emily Hodgson Anderson Frances Burney, studied almost solely for her novels, exemplifies the eighteenth-century female audiorwidi an intense, vexed personal investment in die dieatre.1 She began attending die theatre well before she could read, counted David Garrick as a close friend, and was famous among family members for her acting abilities. She tried repeatedly to get her own play manuscripts produced and finally told her fadier that she had "all [her] life intended" to write for die stage.2 In fact, her entire career as a novelist is located widiin her attempts to succeed as a playwright; she was writing plays before she published Evelina (1778), and she was revising plays well after the publication of her last novel, The Wanderer (1814) (see figure 1). This article focuses on scenes ofstaged suffering in Burney's novels in order to argue for a relationship between her novels and plays, which in turn resonates widi Burney's experiences as a novelist and a 1 Nora Nachumi is die first and only odier critic to date to explore die fact diat "almost 30% ofdie women novelists publishing between 1760 and 1818 were also playwrights, actresses, or closely associated widi someone who worked in die professional theater." Nachumi, "Acting Like a 'Lady': British Women Novelists and the Eighteenth-Century Stage," Romanticism on the Net 12 (November 1998): 2. 2 Thefournals and Letten ofFanny Burney (Madame D'Arblay), 1791-1840, gen. ed. Joyce Hemlow, 12 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972-84), 4:395. References are to diis edition, abbreviated^ EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 17, Number 4,JuIy 2005 630 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION Figure 1. Chronology ofBurney's dramatic and non-dramatic work 1767Destroys herjuvenilia in a bonfire on her fifteenth birdiday: "farces and tragedies" among the papers burned. 1778Publishes Evelina. 1779Completes dramatic comedy The Witlings; play suppressed. 1782Publishes Cecilia. 1786-91 Resides at court as die Keeper of the Robes to Queen Charlotte. While diere, composes four tragedies: Edwy 6fElgiva, Hubert de Vere, The Siege ofPevensey, and Elberta (unfinished) . 1793Hubert de Vereaccepted for production at Drury Lane; Burney later wididraws it in favour oíEdwy and Elgiva. 1795Edwy and Elgiva produced at Drury Lane for one night. 1796Publishes Camilla. 1797Returns to Hubert de Verevnth tiioughts to publish it as a closet drama; no publisher approached. 1799Comedy Love and Fashion accepted by Thomas Harris; wididrawn 2 February 1800. 1800-2 Works on comedies The Woman-Hater, A Busy Day (neither produced) . 1814Publishes The Wanderer (March 28) . Resumes work on Elberta after her fadier's death (April 12). 1832Publishes The Memoirs ofDoctor Burney. 1836Times readings of Hubert de Vere and The Siege ofPevensey. playwright. In so doing, I do not make die simplistic, causal claim that Burney's novels are about her own problems in the theatre; instead, I demonstrate that Burney's interest in die dieatre represents an interest in a certain type ofexpression. What Burneyfound attractive about the theatre was exacdy what she found problematic: the drama offers a forum for public female expression, something diat is a vexed matter within her own life and widiin die lives of her novelistic heroines. Her novels tackle a problem made literal in theatrical performance and implicit in die social interactions surrounding a dieatrical career: how a woman's feelings could or could not be publicly presented—staged. Recent critics have commented on die prevalence ofviolence and female suffering in Burney's novels and read this tendency as symptomatic ofBurney's own anger at the cultural situation ofeighteendicenturywomen writers.3Yet many ofthese scenes ofdistress contain an overlooked motif: tiiey focus on a planned moment ofinsensibility, 3 Margaret Doody, Frances Burney: TheLife in the Works (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988);Julia Epstein, The Iron Pen (Madison: University ofWisconsin Press, 1989); Barbara Zontich, Familiar Violence (Newark: University ofDelaware Press, 1997). STAGED INSENSIBILITY 631 as illustrated here by the premeditated death ofAlbany's fiancée in Cecilia (1782), Camilla's deadi wish and subsequent "deathbed" scene in Camilla (1796), and ElinorJoddrel's second suicide attempt and subsequent swoon in The Wanderer (1814).4 Though eighteenthcentury literature is replete with examples of characters and...

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