Gender and the Formation of Taste in Eighteenth-Century Britain: The Analysis of Beauty

Beauty is one of the most important and intriguing ideas in eighteenth-century culture. The concept of beauty was central to debates about art, culture and taste, and was invoked, in various and contradictory ways, to determine acceptable behavior for women. Robert W. Jones traces changing concepts of beauty in the eighteenth century through a wide range of material, including philosophical texts by William Hogarth and Edmund Burke, novels by Charlotte Lennox and Sarah Scott, and representations of the celebrated beauty Elizabeth Gunning.