![]() ![]() Bienville had given an explanation of feminine subjectivity and women's "otherness" from a misogynist perspective. Bienville's Nymphomania, or, A Dissertation Concerning the Furor Uterinus (1775), which Dacre read, helps to explain some of her views which might otherwise sound anti-feminist. Dacre focused on this second concern and repeatedly blamed Victoria's mother for her daughter's immoral behaviour. ![]() ![]() Young women were warned against the dangers of seduction, and their parents against illicit behaviours which could influence their children negatively. Despite these macabre components, Zofloya aimed at conveying a moral teaching. The Gothic novel's wicked father is replaced by an unnatural mother the young victim is not innocent and is finally granted no redemption the seducer turns out to be a devil in disguise, who wants his victim's soul, but not her body. In terms of plot, Dacre's novel draws upon Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Lewis's The Monk but it shows an element of novelty in its revision of some Gothic stereotypes. It sold 754 of 1000 printed copies in six months, was translated into German and French, inspired an anonymous chapbook and many of Dacre's contemporaries and early successors. ![]()
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