Classical Reception Among the Women of the Eighteenth-Century Bluestocking Society

Abstract

Eighteenth-century Britain saw a rich period of classical reception and allusions to antiquity in its literature, art, and politics. Among those who were influenced by the ancient Greek and Roman cultures were the members of the Bluestocking Society. Comprising mainly of authors, artists, and politicians of the elite class, it is its female members who have gained the most prominence in the subsequent study of the Society. While its most famous female members have been extensively studied through feminist, political, and literary lenses this work seeks to examine the classical influences upon the group. This paper will examine a mixture of contemporary literary works, paintings, engravings, and commissioned architecture, analyzing the classical allusions within these works and how these were used by the Bluestocking women to propagate their social standing. Additionally, the education of the Bluestocking women will be examined to see how certain women of the eighteenth-century made use of informal systems of learning to become as affluent in classical scholarship as their male counterparts. The Bluestocking women were able to use this informal education to become celebrated scholars. Major works analyzed within the paper include the personal letters of the leader of the Bluestockings Elizabeth Montagu, Sarah Fielding’s The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia (1757), Portraits in the Characters of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo (1778) by artist Richard Samuel, and representations of historian Catharine Macaulay as a Roman figure.