Cloistered Bodies: Convents in the Anglo-American Imagination in the British Conquest of Canada

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
Cloistered Bodies: Convents in the Anglo-American Imagination in the British Conquest of Canada
Abstract
An examination of several novels and popular writings of the mid-eighteenth century that reflect how British and American settlers in Quebec immediately after the Conquest viewed French Catholic convents. The author argues that the idea of an independent, “secretive,” French Catholic and all-female society, closed to men, shocked and upset the patriarchal Protestant newcomers trained by centuries of anti-Catholic and anti-French rhetoric. The author points out that Esther Wheelwright (1696-1780), the Quebec Ursulines' New England-born Mother Superior, played a large role in English-language fictional and historical representations of the convent in the 1750s and 1760s.
Publication
Eighteenth Century Studies
Volume
Vol. 39
Issue
no. 2
Pages
187-200
Date
Winter 2006
Language
en
Citation
Little, Ann M. “Cloistered Bodies: Convents in the Anglo-American Imagination in the British Conquest of Canada.” Eighteenth Century Studies Vol. 39, no. 2 (Winter 2006): 187–200.
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