“The Artful Woman”: Mrs. Ellis and the Domestication of Elocution

Rhetoric Review Jan 2020

“The Artful Woman”: Mrs. Ellis and the Domestication of Elocution

Don Paul Abbott

Abstract

Sarah Stickney Ellis, a popular and prolific writer, is now perhaps best remembered as Victorian England’s foremost “propagandist of domesticity.” Ellis, in her Young Ladies’ Reader (1845) “domesticated” women’s elocution by situating it within the home. Although women occupied the private rather than the public sphere, they nevertheless were responsible for much of England’s national greatness—its distinctive “domestic character.” In The Young Ladies’ Reader, elocution becomes a domestic duty supporting the English home and nation. Ellis restricts women’s reading to the private domain thereby reinforcing rhetoric’s traditional separation of male and female discourse.

Journal: Rhetoric Review
Published: 2020-01-02
DOI: 10.1080/07350198.2019.1690373
Open Access: Closed
Topics: multilingual writers

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Cites in this index (1)

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