Sharp Minds / Twisted Bodies: Intellect, Disability, and Female Education in Frances Burney's Camilla (2014)
This essay examines Frances Burney's novel Camilla (1796) in terms of its portrayal of the relationship between `deformity' (physical disability) and female education. It argues that in Camilla, Burney applies the `monster'-as-genius trope (typically a male phenomenon in the eighteenth century) to Eugenia Tyrold, whose bodily abnormalities enable her to develop into a Classical scholar. Eugenia's `masculine' education, in turn, allows her to pen a critique of patriarchy and the male gaze. By exploring Eugenia's character alongside other prominent eighteenth-century historical and literary figures, such as Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, William Hay, Aesop, and Mrs. Smith from Jane Austen's Persuasion, this essay posits that Camilla contributes to a Georgian-era discourse of disability in which bodily impairments facilitate intellectual development.
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