Silly Novels by Lady Novelists: Difference between revisions

{{quote|...whatever vicissitudes she may undergo, from being dashed out of her carriage to having her head shaved in a fever, she comes out of them all with a complexion more blooming and locks more redundant than ever.}}

* [[Big Fancy House]]: The usual scenery of a Silly novel.

* [[Curse]]

* [[Dances and Balls]]: Eliot mocks the excessive frequency of these, especially their use as a way to propitiate a [[Meet Cute]] between the "silph-like" heroines and their romantic interests.

{{quote|The vicious baronet is sure to be killed in a duel, and the tedious husband dies in his bed requesting his wife, as a particular favor to him, to marry the man she loves best, and having already dispatched a note to the lover informing him of the comfortable arrangement.}}

* [[Death of the Hypotenuse]]: whenever the heroine marries the [[Wrong Guy First|Evil Baronet]], he will dispose of himself via [[Duel to the Death]].

* [[Did Not Do the Research]]: Mocked thoroughly the text.

{{quote|The fair writers have evidently never talked to a tradesman except from a carriage window; they have no notion of the working-classes except as “dependents;” they think five hundred a year a miserable pittance; Belgravia and “baronial halls” are their primary truths; and they have no idea of feeling interest in any man who is not at least a great landed proprietor, if not a prime minister. [[...]] If their peers and peeresses are improbable, their literary men, tradespeople, and cottagers are impossible; and their intellect seems to have the peculiar impartiality of reproducing both what they ''have'' seen and heard, and what they have ''not'' seen and heard, with equal unfaithfulness.}}

* [[Genius Book Club]]: According to Eliot, the "intelligent" heroines all have read the same books that were considered the mark of intelligence at the time, mostly the Greek and Roman classics like Virgil, Livy and Horace.

* [[Gilded Cage]]: In the opinion of Eliot, both the heroines of Silly Novels and the Lady Novelist who wrote them live in these.

* [[Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance]]: Eliot suggest that this is the reason behind so many Silly Novels: their authors are way too impressed to having get at education at all that they become [[Delusions of Eloquence|extremely impressed with their own erudition]], so they don't realize how trite and clichés their plots are and how mediocre their writing actually is. Woman with similar level of ability but more self-awareness just won't publish their writings, and women with a bit more talent and awareness actually write good stuff.

* [[Improbable Age]]: Along with the example mocked in [[Little Professor Dialog]] below, many heroines are portrayed as being extremely educated before being 18.

* [[Little Professor Dialog]]: Elliot quotes a particularly egregious example where a 4 and a half year-old kid dispenses a [[Purple Prose]] [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]] filled discourse, and how ridiculous it actually sounds.

* [[Long-Lost Relative]]

{{quote|"They see her at a ball, and they are dazzled; at a flower-show, and they are fascinated; on a riding excursion, and they are witched by her noble horsemanship; at church, and they are awed by the sweet solemnity of her demeanor."}}

* [[Love Dodecahedron]]: Eliot mocks the frequency the protagonist of these silly novels are embroiled in onde of these

* [[Mary Sue]]

** [[Canon Sue]]: All the works are technically original fiction.