By Grace Ayoub and Kelly Plante
Charlotte Lennox used religious imagery toward her proto-feminist aim of advocating for education for both “sexes.” The serialized essay that appeared in multiple installments throughout both years of the Lady’s Museum’s 1760–61 print run, “Philosophy for the Ladies,” encourages readers to explore the physical environment from miniscule and panoramic vantage points in order to experience the wonder and awe of God’s creation, from the insect to the universal level. In this way, the scientific exploration of nature enables men as well was women to appreciate the universe. “Philosophy for the Ladies” thus made a compelling case for its time: that women’s education within nature was important, and equally important was for men to humble up and admit they were no better than women because ultimately, like “man” can crush an insect, so too can God easily crush men.
This critical introduction outlines the ways in which the Lady’s Museum essayist plays with gender in metaphors/allusions, imagery, and adjectives typically associated with either gender in order to create the educational system called “Philosophy for the Ladies”: an acceptable curriculum in which both genders learn equally from scientific exploration of the universe.
Gendered Metaphors/Allusions
The introduction to “Philosophy for the Ladies” contains two metaphors that are also allusions to male authority figures and writers, thus combining the power of metaphor to convey an argument with the rhetorical power of association with male predecessors from antiquity as well as England:
Learning, in short, is the old man’s bundle of rods: when bound up in the cluster, it is almost impossible to be overcome, yet every single twig may easily be mastered. In short, we see not the labour we have to go through, when it is presented to us in minute portions; yet still it answers the end proposed, ‘Small sands the mountain, moments make the year.’ We accumulate knowledge by golden grains, and find ourselves possessed of an ample treasure before we are even aware that we have attained the necessary store for our passing easily through life.[1]
Two separate allusions combine to make the overarching argument. First, the “old man’s bundle of rods” refers to those that were “carried by lectors before the superior magistrates at Rome as an emblem of their power.”[2] Additionally, old men were typically associated with wisdom and power. The essayist channels this male, passed-down power, building on it to solidify her case. Moreover, the allusion that immediately follows it, builds on another male poet-predecessor, Edward Young. Young wrote the famous poem “Night-Thoughts” between 1742–46 (approximately 20 years before the Lady’s Museum’s publication).[3] Invocation of Young would support the essay’s stance on learning as a process for all people regardless of gender: small sands, after all, make the mountain. In this way, the accumulation of knowledge is rightly achieved through even the smallest objects, “golden grains” the “old man’s [bundle] of rods” from ancient Rome, and male-English poet Edward Young, support this.
“Philosophy for the Ladies” begins, and ends, with metaphors and allusions to male poets and thinkers. The conclusion alludes to the “fabled fate of Tantalus.”[4] The classical-Greek poet Homer describes Tantalus’s fate in the Odyssey as the state of perpetual, unfulfilled desire: thirsty and hungry, he was sentenced to glimpse water and succulent foods dangled over him by a demon yet never partake. The myth of Tantalus cautions Lady’s Museum readers not to meet this fate: as Lennox puts it, to “starve in the midst of plenty,” being “unable to procure or enjoy” life’s “greatest delicacies.”
“Philosophy for the Ladies” then makes two “deductions”: that “man’s” “self-applied superiority” must be placed into the context that all beings owe their existence to “that omnipotent Being.” Rather than exalt “man’s” supposed superiority to animals such as, here, crocodiles—and also, women—due to their “peculiar gift of reason,” “humility and gratitude” are in fact the necessary qualities to cultivate to appreciate and rightly experience the universe.
Gendered Imagery
Lennox uses gendered imagery to dually convey beauty and convince readers that scientific, nature-based inquiry, then known as natural philosophy, was a worthy pursuit for women as well as men. For instance, in one of the passages that discusses animal transformations, a “common gnat” receives the following description:
This little delicate tender insect, which the gentlest touch will destroy, the least breath of wind waft upon its bosom, and the least drop of rain buries in its waves, yet first sees existence in that rough and turbulent element the water. There it is the parent lays her egg, which is hatched by some means we can little comprehend, (for heat can have no influence at the bottom of the water) comes out a little groveling worm, minute and unobservable; changing form this, however, it soon arises towards the surface of the water, where, hanging, suspended on air-bubble, no bad emblem of the general dependence of human affairs, it passes [through] a thousand fluctuations; now hurried onwards by the rapid power of tides, or the uncertain gust of winds varying at every moment, and now gliding smoothly on the calm even surface of a glassy dream, till at length seizing on the happy moment for deliverance from this [suspense], it drops the slough which now envelops it, and mounting into air, quits and disdains alike its helpless state of infancy, and its precarious anxious situation when brought to somewhat more apparent ripeness. Reflect on this, oh man, and think what art thou but a poor insect, crushed before the moth![5]
This passage appeals to readers’ sense of sight and touch through phrases like “gliding smoothly” and “glassy dream” to convey the ease and beauty, the relaxed state of just being in nature—which can then be interrupted by “rapid powers of tides, or the uncertain gusts of winds.” While being outside and exploring the world or simply relaxing in nature allows the desired state of “gliding smoothly” and living in a “glassy dream,” nature also involves great uncertainty and interruptions to this restful state of beauty, typically associated with women, and power, typically associated with men. This particular passage then ends by imploring the reader—man—to “[reflect on this, oh man, and think what art thou but a poor insect, crushed before the moth!” If people, or “man,” can destroy an insect in seconds, so too does God harbor the power to destroy “man” in seconds through both “power” and uncertainty. In “Philosophy for the Ladies,” then, recognition of man’s weakness becomes a strength.
Gendered Adjectives
Much like Lennox argues regarding the importance of recognizing even miniscule insects’ roles in the universe, “Philosophy for the Ladies” functions by examining the text at the macro and micro level. In the case of what follows, not only through sweeping, historical and literary metaphors/allusions and gendered imagery does the essayist persuade readers, but also at the adjectival, single-word level. By appreciating “Philosophy for the Ladies” at both the macro and micro level, readers can fully understand and appreciate the value and beauty of Lennox’s writing process and product. Two adjectives, “detached” and “helpless,” both appear in the essay’s conclusion; both of these words, juxtaposed, sum up the essay’s overarching goal to build up women and level men in the educational, and universal, realm. The essay’s dual aim is to encourage the “[fairer] sex” (that is, women) to explore the abundance of God’s creation and, simultaneously, to encourage men to discard their supposed superiority to women due to their knowledge and education; all humans, according to the essayist, rely equally on God for “their daily bread.”[6] The adjective associated with men in this passage, “detached,” combines with “helpless,” an adjective typically associated with the “[fairer] sex,” in order to unite male and female readers into the same situation: that of utter dependence.
Conclusion
Miniscule and panoramic vantage points, insects as well as tides, women as well as men: all are brought together in the educational and universal realm of “Philosophy for the Ladies.” The metaphors/allusions, imagery, and adjectives raise women’s and humble men’s educational statuses so that both genders ultimately, through the “Lady’s Philosophy” achieve the same goal: increased appreciation of their place in the universe.
[1] “Philosophy for the Ladies – Abridged Teaching Edition,” ed. Karenza Sutton-Bennett et al, The Lady’s Museum Project (March 2023), https://ladysmuseum.com/teaching/course-reader-documents/philosophy-for-the-ladies-abridged/.
[2] “Fasces” Oxford English Dictionary, https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/68337?rskey=ArkkSP&result=2&isAdvanced=true#eid4788107.
[3] Huber, Alexander. “Edward Young.” Eighteenth Century Poetry Online, 17 July 2022, https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/authors/pers00267.shtml.
[4] https://ladysmuseum.com/teaching/course-reader-documents/philosophy-for-the-ladies-abridged/#_ednref37
[5] “Philosophy for the Ladies – Abridged Teaching Edition,” https://ladysmuseum.com/teaching/course-reader-documents/philosophy-for-the-ladies-abridged/.
[6] “Philosophy for the Ladies – Abridged Teaching Edition,” https://ladysmuseum.com/teaching/course-reader-documents/philosophy-for-the-ladies-abridged/.