Reading will not find you a husband: Eloise Bridgerton, accomplishment and the ‘thinking woman’ in the early nineteenth-century period drama

Abstract

From the very opening scenes of Bridgerton (), Eloise Bridgerton, the second-eldest daughter, takes centre stage as a character entrenched in a Regency London world, yet immediately identifiable to a modern audience. Her desire to learn and live beyond a conventional path sets her apart in a way that provides hope to a viewing audience that desires from her a myriad of things, including the intertwining of her reticence to marry, her close friendship with Penelope Featherington and intellectual aspirations with longed-for queer representation. This article will explore how the building of Eloise’s character allows for the exploration of the gendering of intellectual freedom on-screen at a place where fact, fiction and audience desires meet. In examining the translation of the complicated nature of the ‘thinking woman’ and ‘accomplishment’ onto screen through the lens of Eloise, and the references and language used, in particular those to Wollstonecraft, as well as audience responses to and desires for Eloise, this article will demonstrate how a conflation of historical reference and modern outlook both re-energizes and often polarizes feminist tropes of the scholarly woman.