![]() ![]() ![]() The diegetic discourse that frames Evelina's intelligence as a contradiction and apparent undoing of her innocence occasionally leaks into scholarly discourse on the novel's heroine. This is a world in which Evelina is repeatedly judged as either a coquette-that is, a knowing woman, as the satirical Mrs Selwyn jibes-or as an ignoramus, her innocence either charming or laughable to those around her. At an early ball, the two men who have interacted with her, Lord Orville and Sir Clement Willoughby, debate over whether she is "ignorant" or "all intelligence and expression," respectively (36–37). Her guardian, the Reverend Arthur Villars, writes to Lady Howard that Evelina "is quite a little rustic" who "knows nothing of the world," 1 with a "guileless and innocent soul" and "ingenuous simplicity" (127). ![]() Frances Burney's first novel, Evelina (1778), contains multiple scenes in which characters of more social authority than the eponymous young woman assess her intellectual capabilities, or attempt to. ![]()
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