Regency Queer History
Before I forget to post about this...
On Monday night Peter noted that there was a drama on telly starring Maxine Peake. We like Maxine and try and catch stuff that she does. So we watched. It was a drama about Anne Lister - an 'openly' lesbian woman in regency times (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/2010/05/anne-listers-diaries-from-page.shtml) Fascinating.
Anne wrote a diary running to 4 million words and therefore being twice as many words as Pepys. She wrote explicitly about her thoughts and actions - with the explicit stuff being written in a code. The drama was followed by a documentary narrated by Sue Perkins (for whom I have a great deal of time). She commented on her own lack of knowledge of this woman and how history would have been far more interesting to her as a kid had characters such as Anne been highlighted. I did a course looking at the role of women in the UK economy and we never dealt with women as land owners at this time (I suppose because they were so rare). Yet this woman was a landowner, sunk a coal mine on her land, was a very successful business woman and as Sue Perkins pointed out, moulded other women to fit in with her business and leisure activities. She probably had the first 'official' civil partnership, with her marriage being blessed in the church.
As was said in the documentary, previous to this we have the women of Jane Austen as guides of social niceties in this era. Yet in Anne Lister we see a totally different outlook on life of the times. Totally fascinating.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Lister
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Know-Own-Heart-1791-1840-Literature/dp/0814792499
On Monday night Peter noted that there was a drama on telly starring Maxine Peake. We like Maxine and try and catch stuff that she does. So we watched. It was a drama about Anne Lister - an 'openly' lesbian woman in regency times (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/2010/05/anne-listers-diaries-from-page.shtml) Fascinating.
Anne wrote a diary running to 4 million words and therefore being twice as many words as Pepys. She wrote explicitly about her thoughts and actions - with the explicit stuff being written in a code. The drama was followed by a documentary narrated by Sue Perkins (for whom I have a great deal of time). She commented on her own lack of knowledge of this woman and how history would have been far more interesting to her as a kid had characters such as Anne been highlighted. I did a course looking at the role of women in the UK economy and we never dealt with women as land owners at this time (I suppose because they were so rare). Yet this woman was a landowner, sunk a coal mine on her land, was a very successful business woman and as Sue Perkins pointed out, moulded other women to fit in with her business and leisure activities. She probably had the first 'official' civil partnership, with her marriage being blessed in the church.
As was said in the documentary, previous to this we have the women of Jane Austen as guides of social niceties in this era. Yet in Anne Lister we see a totally different outlook on life of the times. Totally fascinating.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Lister
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Know-Own-Heart-1791-1840-Literature/dp/0814792499