Elizabeth Griffith

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Portrait of Elizabeth Griffith

Elizabeth Griffith (born October 11, 1727 in Glamorgan , † January 5, 1793 in Kildare ) was an Irish writer and actress . She has written plays and novels and has also acted as an editor .

Life

Griffith was born in Wales and spent her childhood in Dublin , where she played in Thomas Sheridan's theater company from 1749 . She came from an educated family, but was not well off financially after the death of her father around 1744. From 1746 she maintained a long correspondence with the also impoverished Richard Griffith (to whom she was not related), whom she finally married in secret; this correspondence was published in 1757 with fictionalized names as A Series of Genuine Letters between Henry and Frances . The band became a huge success. It was around this time that Griffith moved to London to make a living as a writer. Their two children were born in 1752 and 1756.

Griffith saw herself primarily as a playwright and wrote mostly comedies with which she gained some popularity. The first of these, The Platonic Wife (1765), received negative reviews from contemporary critics - the main character, modeled after the figure of Frances in the Letters , was a self-confident woman who sought recognition and respect who eventually abandoned her husband which has not been well received in the London theater scene. Griffith's subsequent dramas were more based on traditional role models and portrayed more passive female characters. The Double Mistake (1766) and The School for Rakes (1769) were great successes . Nevertheless, despite her popularity, she never fully established herself as a woman in the theater scene; her last play, The Times (1779), a comedy on the dangers of gambling addiction , was accused of using satire that was inappropriate for a woman. Although Griffith partially bowed to the demands placed on her by critics, complex female characters remained one of her recurring themes, which was also shown in her three novels. All three have female main characters who have to endure a lot of suffering, but who are ultimately morally superior.

In 1780 Griffith's son Richard returned from India a wealthy man , relieving her of the financial necessity of writing. She spent the last years of her life in Dublin again.

bibliography

  • Theodorick, King of Denmark (1752, drama)
  • A Series of Genuine Letters between Henry and Frances (1757, epistolary novel )
  • Amana (1764, drama)
  • The Platonic Wife (1765, drama)
  • The Double Mistake (1766, drama)
  • Two Novels in Letters by the Authors of Henry and Frances (1769, epistolary novel)
  • The School for Rakes (1769, drama)
  • The Delicate Distress (1769, novel)
  • The History of Lady Barton (1771, novel)
  • A Wife in the Right (1772, drama)
  • The Morals of Shakespeare Illustrated (1775, literary criticism)
  • The Story of Lady Juliana Harvey (1776, novel)
  • The Times (1779)
  • Novellettes, selected for the use of young ladies and gentlemen (1780, short stories)

Web links

Commons : Elizabeth Griffith  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lorna Sage (ed.): The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English , Cambridge University Press: Cambridge (1999), p. 293
  2. ↑ Elizabeth Eger: Entry on Elizabeth Griffith in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessed February 8, 2010)
personal data
SURNAME Griffith, Elizabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish writer and actress
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1727
PLACE OF BIRTH Glam organ
DATE OF DEATH January 5, 1793
Place of death Kildare