“SOMETHING IN MME DE GENLIS STILE”: GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE'S “ZILLIA”, PLAYWRITING AND FEMALE ARISTOCRATIC AUTHORSHIP

Abstract

Famous as a salonnière, fashion icon and supporter of the Whig Party, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (1757–1806) was also a prolific writer, author of two epistolary novels, numerous poems and at least six manuscript plays. Just as she is in the process of being rediscovered as a novelist and poet, this article explores her even less well-known ambitions as a dramatist and her complex involvement in the theatrical world. The main focus is on the Duchess's earliest surviving play “Zillia” (1782), which is illuminating in connection to her development as a playwright, her interest in closet drama, and the pedagogical and political dimensions of her dramatic works. Particular attention is devoted to the ways in which Devonshire uses the language and discourse of sensibility to sketch an ideal of female aristocratic citizenship. The author also looks at the dynamics between the play and the work it was inspired by, Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis's Théâtre à l'usage des jeunes personnes (Theatre of Education, 1779–80), which illustrate the anxieties surrounding debates about acting and its subversive potential, and the complex cultural appropriation of “foreign” drama in late eighteenth-century Britain. Additionally, the author shows how Devonshire's ambivalent comments on Genlis in her correspondence reflect her anxieties about her own authorship. Finally, the article briefly assesses the affinities between experimental “closet drama”, pedagogical plays and elite culture.