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Part of
News with an Attitude: Ideological perspectives in the historical press
Edited by Claudia Claridge
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 105] 2025
► pp. 156–176

Chapter 8
Female-male relations in letters to the editor in The Orphan Reviv'd: or, Powell’s Weekly Journal (1719–1720)

| University of Florence
This chapter examines the discursive realisation of female-male relations in letters to the editor (LTEs) in Elizabeth Powell’s The Orphan Reviv'd: or, Powell’s Weekly Journal (1719–1720) and four other early eighteenth-century newspapers. LTEs about female-male relations in the Orphan Reviv'd are rarely neutral in tone with evaluation evident and marked linguistically in various ways. Much of the correspondence expresses a sympathetic viewpoint of women’s condition in their relations with men. However, this positive evaluation is modified by two important considerations. First, the role of women is refracted through a male prism as seen in the discursive focus on male behaviour. Secondly, when women unreservedly express agency it is viewed negatively since it reflects unacceptable features of male behaviour.
Keywords: eighteenth-century, newspapers, Elizabeth Powell, The Orphan Reviv'd, female-male relations, letters to the editor, discourse, evaluation, female agency
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Female-male relations in the periodical press (1691–1719)
    • 2.11691–1712
    • 2.21712–1719
  • 3.Female-Male relations in Elizabeth Powell’s Orphan Reviv'd
    • 3.1Elizabeth Powell
    • 3.2Theoretical framework
    • 3.3Power and conquest
    • 3.4Naming
    • 3.5Entertainment
  • 4.Female-male relations in the management of the Orphan Reviv'd
  • 5.Female-male relations in letters to the editor in four other weeklies (1719–1720)
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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