Questionless
An audacious woman writer from the 18th Century gives a master class in resisting patriarchy
This essay is part of a series called “Shut Out, Not Shut Up” on women through the ages who’ve written despite being dismissed because of their sex. They persisted.
It was a bold move. A young novelist—a woman—cribbed the title of a century-old classic for her own second book. Culture critics reviled her for being overly ambitious; other women criticized her as ‘incendiary.’ Since she couldn’t rely on a husband’s wealth, she depended on income from performing in the theatre and writing. Before publishing, the book’s success would be not only consequential to its author but also unlikely, given the writer’s sex and reputation.
To modern eyes, this eighteenth century woman—buried under yards of heavy fabric and dramatic makeup, her hair ornately dressed—may seem anything but boldly assertive. Her image may appear submissive, doll-like, pliable. Importantly, this image of fragility wasn’t simply a matter of style: contemporaneous European law treated her, and all woman, as subservient to men and without agency.
The women writers we’ve met in the “Shut out, not shut up” series defied their legal and societal treatment. When we hear from those women directly, not through the stories and articles penned by men, not defined by cultural standards adjudicated by men, we discover rich and fertile minds. They’re remarkable for their outspokenness, their robust argumentativeness, their wit, and sly humor. When you ignore the stereotypes created to drain people of their power, when you listen to those whom the powerful attempt to flatten, you inevitably discover much in common and also to admire.
Charlotte Lennox is no exception. With only one published book to her credit, she penned her own masterpiece, which she cheekily titled The Female Quixote or The Adventures of Arabella. Cervantes had published Don Quixote a century before Charlotte’s birth.1 Lennox knew Don Quixote was a literary classic. She aimed for the stars and, astonishingly, her risk paid off handsomely.
The Female Quixote
The novel, like its model, is an episodic satire. It features the adventures of a naïve principal character who interprets the world according to the traditions of romantic morality tales. Whereas Cervantes’ mad knight sees innocence and guilelessness in every young female he encounters, Lennox’s novel upends this motif. Her heroine, Arabella, views every unknown male in her path as a ‘Ravisher’ who must be vanquished or die to preserve her ‘glory.’
Arabella fits every life experience into the literary tales of romance she’s consumed since childhood. She’s seriously well-read within this narrow focus, which the novel demonstrates with a succession of educated male characters who try and fail to outwit her. She’s also a great beauty: even female rivals grudgingly admire her superior appeal.
Arabella’s story begins as a fairy tale. There once was a Marquis who was a favorite of the Crown. The Marquis had enemies at Court, and their treachery resulted in his exile to the country, where he built a great palace. There, he married a beautiful woman who gave birth to a child, our heroine, before dying three days later.
The Marquis loves the child and spends his days enjoying nature and reading in his extensive library. The child Arabella discovers her mother’s treasured collection of romantic histories. Although isolated at the country estate, Arabella fills her imaginative world with what she learns from her mother’s books.
When she comes of marriageable age, her cousin Mr. Glanville approaches the Marquis with a proposal to wed his daughter. The Marquis approves, although he maintains that Arabella has the right to select her husband. The Marquis dies soon after, leaving Arabella’s inheritance at risk: she will only inherit the estate if she marries Glanville, per the terms of the will. Sir Charles, Glanville’s father, assumes responsibility for the estate while the inheritance is pending. Sir Charles and Mr. Glanville move into the castle where Arabella lives, as does Glanville’s sister (Miss Glanville), who’s brought along to provide female companionship for Arabella and ensure propriety with the suitor living on-site.
Every episodic adventure in the book is a variation of the same setup: Arabella encounters a stranger and imagines malicious intent. The targets of her wild imaginings follow a familiar course: first perplexed, they soon become humiliated. Her cousins (Mr. and Miss Glanville) and their father Sir Charles are alternately amused and alarmed at Arabella’s loose grip on reality when she exhorts them to defend her against an imagined threat. They attempt to reason with her and fail. Her would-be suitor, Mr. Glanville, intending to placate her, agrees with her insistence that he murder the Ravisher, despite having no intention of carrying out such an atrocity. Eventually the stranger leaves and the threat subsides, reinforcing Arabella’s righteous convictions.
The exception to this repetitive string of episodes comes in the character of Sir George Bellmour, who is an acquaintance of Mr. Glanville. Sir George, having met Arabella and being apprised of her estate, sees a financial opportunity for a man like him who’s willing to play her game. Rather than dismiss her fantasies or deride them, he plays along, spinning ‘adventures’ (featuring him as the hero) that mimic the French romances that fuel Arabella’s imagination. Frustratingly for Miss Glanville, who thinks her cousin is an idiot and who’s in love with Sir George, Arabella appears to be attracted to Sir George and his tales. Sir George slips up eventually—he may be familiar with the romance novels but he hasn’t invested in them as fully as his mark has—and Arabella dismisses him.
Many more episodes later, Sir George undertakes a subterfuge worthy of Shakespeare and ensnares Arabella in a trap. The faithful Mr. Glanville comes to Arabella’s rescue, spoils the treacherous plot, and accidentally vanquishes Sir George.
In the penultimate chapter, Arabella is bedridden (having jumped into the Thames and suffered the consequences) and emotionally exhausted. A doctor-philosopher is called to attend to her, and the two of them debate extensively about her delusions. Through this methodical interrogation, Arabella accepts the primacy of fact-based logic. She contends that she will accept the truth of his argument if he can prove to her that romances meet three criteria: they’re fictional, absurd, and criminal. She accepts the validity of his arguments and changes her mind. She relinquishes her delusions.
In this, the novel’s longest chapter2, Arabella finally accepts what she has resisted all along. She agrees to live in the practical world everyone around her inhabits. She marries Mr. Glanville and his sister marries Sir George. The final words of the novel differentiate these two marriages.3
We chuse, Reader, to express this Circumstance, through the same in different Words, as well to avoid Repetition, as to intimate that the first mentioned Pair [Sir George and Miss Glanville] were indeed only married in the common Acceptation of the Word; that is, they were privileged to join Fortunes, Equipages, Titles, and Expence; while Mr. Glanville and Arabella were united, as well in these, as in every Virtue and laudable Affection of the Mind.
Arabella’s strategy
While every other character is deriding or patronizing her, Arabella makes a strong case for herself. Adopting the perspective of a powerful romantic heroine (such as Cleopatra), she controls the events around her. Arabella as the Marquis’ daughter and contingent heir has been robbed of her agency. She’s dependent on her uncle and conscripted by her dead father into marrying her cousin. Fortunately for her, her suitor truly loves her. Glanville doesn’t want to take advantage of Arabella; he wants her to recognize his devotion. He wants her to desire him.
Through her fantasized version of reality, Arabella finds an effective means of controlling those around her. She appears to be naïve and artless, but her artful manipulation enables her to live in a world of her making. Her persistence in maintaining control is remarkable.
She often holds forth at length, instructing others on the tales of romantic heroines that illuminate the current predicament. As she talks, she’s fond of slipping in a word to bolster her claims: questionless. She uses it not as a synonym of ‘doubtless’ or ‘certainly’ but as a rhetorical maneuver. She tosses it out provocatively, stipulating that there is no question to the assertion she makes. Nothing you can say will cause her to question the point. It’s meant to shut down any challenge. It’s an imperious move, one that she uses repeatedly.
At the novel’s end, she finally allows someone to question her assertions. She listens, applies logic, and changes her mind. This is a willful act: she doesn’t accede to pleading or condescension. She makes a choice. She accepts the facts the romances are fictional, absurd, and they advocate acts that are criminal in nature (e.g., murder).
Her previous fitting of reality into the template of romantic fantasy was the exercise of ego. Faced with a grim reality of being used by others, she asserted herself as the author of her own ‘Adventures.’ Faced with real-world consequences—a man came close to losing his life—she chose to reconsider her assumptions. This time, she made another choice.
Questionless, marriage would not impair her being the mistress of her own fate.
Who is Charlotte Lennox?
Born Barbara Charlotte Ramsay in 1729,4 Charlotte was the child of a Scottish captain in the British army and a Scottish-Irish mother. Her family lived in England for the first ten years of her life, until they moved to Albany, NY, where her father was a lieutenant governor for four years before his death.
Charlotte started writing in her teens and published her first book, a volume of poetry, when she was a young woman. She become known for her writing and acting in London before marrying Alexander Lennox. Her fame and income eclipsed her husband’s; he was said to be a civil servant, but this might have been a sinecure given to him in recognition of his wife’s celebrity. This marriage likely benefited him more than her.
Samuel Johnson became her friend, and he was effusive in his public support of her. With fame, Lennox also became a target of criticism. A group of women, friends of Johnson, were less than enthusiastic about her. They criticized how she kept her house5 and said she was ill-tempered and unpleasant. She was ‘incendiary,’ they claimed.
Her second novel, The Female Quixote, won acclaim from leading lights of literature like Samuel Richardson, Johnson, and Henry Fielding. Aided by testimonials from literary lions like these, the novel sold very well and was translated into multiple languages. Lennox was able to use its literary reputation to market future writings. She sought literary collaborations with male writers that allowed her to extend her reach. She studied Shakespeare’s sources and published three volumes of the scholarly work, Shakespear Illustrated, which some call the first feminist work of literary criticism. Interestingly, she thought Shakespeare’s treatment of female characters took “from them the power and the moral independence which the old romances and novels had given them.”6
Her Shakespearean studies received mixed reviews, as did her subsequent writings. She continued to write despite the critical backlash, relying on her literary efforts for her income.
Lennox had two children who survived infancy, and she eventually separated from her husband, from whom she’d been estranged for many years. She lived in poverty, relying on support from the Literary Fund, until she died in 1804 at the age of 74 (or, ten years older?). She was buried in an unmarked grave.
Although Charlotte Lennox’s life history isn’t well documented, her book The Female Quixote remained fairly popular through the 19th century. More recent literary criticism has renewed interest in Lennox and in her writing, despite its archaic style.
Modern considerations
In The Female Quixote, Lennox uses humor to drive home her serious criticism of the injustices forced on women within patriarchal society. Her protagonist, Arabella, is indeed ridiculous. Other characters laugh at her, giving us permission as well. Those who love her think she’s a bit daft, and sometimes worry for her mental health.
As in the 20th century film “Harvey” with Jimmy Stewart, Arabella has a fixation that’s amusing but benign, even though it invites mishaps and misunderstandings. And like Stewart’s Elwood P. Dowd, Arabella has created a rich fantasy life that protects her from acknowledging the depressing truths of the reality inhabited by others. Importantly, Arabella listens to and accepts a rational critique of her fixation. Her author writes an exit for her, one in which she gains more from relinquishing the fantasy than by holding on.
The woman who bolstered her argumentative force with the word “Questionless” allows herself to question. This act frees her from seeing the world as predatory. It remakes her into a heroine, rather than the butt of a running joke.
Lennox’s resolution depends on Arabella being a rational actor despite acting irrationally for almost 400 pages. Our modern world offers many examples of people who forcibly align their views of the world with a personal mythology. Within that mythology, they’re heroes or heroines inhabiting a hostile world in which they must battle. They shield their own lawless impulses in a supposed honor their myth confers. They do not question. They may seem laughable to others who should take them seriously. They are irrational actors. They are also legion.
People who cannot question the validity of their thinking are beyond rational discourse. Catastrophic consequences don’t make an impact on their unstrung beliefs. Normalizing their delusions exacerbates the problem and increases their power. With force, they can fit the world to their fantasy. This has been the work of patriarchy since men strong-armed it into existence.
“Questionless” hovers whenever a man talks over a woman, takes credit for her work, dismisses her career as a DEI unfair advantage, refuses to take her direction, or trashes her online for having an opinion. Like every woman, I’ve experienced these and more. It’s exhausting. It saps your confidence and erodes your sense of agency, of being a person who matters. It can make you think you’re invisible. That’s the intent.
Charlotte Lennox didn’t stand for it. She snatched it for herself, then demonstrated how an intelligent, powerful woman can rip ‘Questionless’ to shreds.
She was indeed incendiary. Perfectly so.
Ellie’s Corner
For regular readers, here’s a throwback to Ellie when we first met her. She was a wild child. (Some might say ‘incendiary’ but that’s overwrought.) She was fixing to rock our world.
If Ellie had words, I have no doubt ‘questionless’ would be on permanent rotation.
Thanks for reading,
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It was published in two parts in 1605 and 1615.
Some claim that this chapter was written by Samuel Johnson (sigh). The chapter stands as an exception to the rest of the book in length and substance, but the only reason to doubt it was written by Charlotte Lennox would be that she wasn’t capable of writing it, which is false as well as sexist. It beggars belief that Johnson would allow the crowning chapter of a very popular book to be attributed to anyone but him, if he indeed wrote it. But people also claim that Capote wrote Harper Lee’s masterpiece. It’s almost as if some men can’t accept that women can write all by themselves.
Lennox uses typographical norms standard for her time, in which nouns are capitalized, proper nouns are italicized, and dialogue isn’t set apart with double quotes. This is irritating to some modern reviewers. How dare she not conform to expectations of readers in the future!
Her birth date and place are speculative. She’s variously said to have been born in 1720 or 1729, in either Gibraltar or New York, which is quite the margin of error.
She laughed off the housekeeping jibe, as she should, no matter what her house looked like. Can you imagine this: “He wrote a lovely sonnet and his King Lear is a masterpiece, but have you seen the state of his house? That Shakespeare—what a slob!”
Doody, Margaret Anne (Fall 1987). "Shakespeare's Novels: Charlotte Lennox Illustrated". Studies in the Novel.
This is a powerful essay. Now I’m going to have to read the book! I really do think that this series has been opening spaces in my brain that I did not previously know existed. Thank you.