ABSTRACT

In Bell in Campo, the complaints of women left behind in wartime become the complaints of grieving war widows, namely Madam Jantil and Madam Passionate. Cavendish juxtaposes these laments with depictions of a new female army that emerges from – or perhaps truncates what begins as – complaint, with Lady Victoria issuing a call to arms in her fury at being transported, for her safety, away from her husband and the battlefield. While the “Generalless” ostensibly identifies two very different motivations for enlisting, “discontent” and “honour and fame” intertwine in the mode of complaint (I:3.2, p. 51). “Honour” is often interchangeable with “pride” in the period, but “pride” is also frequently feminised, sometimes in contradistinction to masculine honour. Moral tracts described sinful pride as mistaking one’s place, an error to which women were thought to be especially prone. This definition resonates with Lady Victoria’s troops seeking “renown” on the battlefield despite the men’s insistence that the women do not belong there (I:3.2, p. 55). Bell in Campo reveals how complaint, as a literary mode, participates in the gradual shift from notions of pride as a particularly feminine sin to more positive understandings of pride as legitimate self-assertion.

摘要

在坎波的贝尔，战时留守妇女的抱怨变成了悲痛的战争寡妇的抱怨，即詹蒂尔夫人和激情夫人。卡文迪什将这些悲叹与新女性军队的描述并列在一起. 虽然“无将军”表面上确定了两种截然不同的入伍动机，但“不满”和“荣誉和名望”在抱怨模式中交织在一起（I：3.2，第 51 页）。在这个时期，“荣誉”经常与“骄傲”互换，但“骄傲”也经常被女性化，有时与男性荣誉相反。道德传单将有罪的骄傲描述为误入歧途，女性被认为特别容易犯的错误。这一定义与维多利亚夫人的军队在战场上寻求“名声”产生共鸣，尽管男性坚持认为女性不属于那里（I：3.2，第 55 页）。坎波的贝尔揭示了抱怨作为一种文学模式是如何参与从将骄傲作为一种特别女性化的罪恶的观念逐渐转变为将骄傲视为合法的自我主张的更积极理解的。