Blue stockings were a group of intellectual women (and some men) who met together in the 18th century to discuss mostly literary matters, as opposed to meeting together at card parties and routs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Notable members of the circle were Elizabeth Montague, Hannah Moore Fanny Burney, and Mrs Hester Cahpone .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How did these meeting of intellectual men and women have the term Blue stocking applied to them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boswell, in his Life of Dr. Johnson, states that these \u201cbluestocking clubs\u201d were so named because of Benjamin Stillingfleet, who attended in unconventional blue worsted stockings rather than the customary formal black silk stockings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Much\nperverse ingenuity was wasted by the writers of the first quarter of the\nnineteenth century in trying to account for the term \u201cbluestocking.\u201d Abraham\nHayward, de Quincey, Mrs. Opie, all sought for an obscure origin in France, in\nItaly, anywhere, in fact, save where it lay embedded in the writings of the\nbluestocking circle. The point is still disputed, but critical authorities lean\nto the Stillingfleet origin, supported by Boswell, and corroborated by Madame\nd\u2019Arblay. During the annual migration of the great world to Bath, Mrs. Vesey, meeting Benjamin\nStillingfleet, invited him to one of her \u201cconversations.\u201d Stillingfleet, the\ndisinherited grandson of the bishop of Worcester, was a botanist and a poet, a\nphilosopher and a failure. He had given up society and was obliged to decline\nthe invitation on the score of not having clothes suitable for an evening\nassembly. The Irishwoman, a singularly inconsequent person, giving a swift\nglance at his everyday attire, which included small-clothes and worsted\nstockings, exclaimed gaily: \u201cDon\u2019t mind dress. Come in your blue stockings.\u201d\nStillingfleet obeyed her to the letter; and, when he entered the brilliant\nassembly where ladies in \u201cnight gowns\u201d of brocade and lutestring were scarcely\nmore splendid in plumage than men in garments of satin and paduasoy, the shabby\nrecluse claimed permission to join them by whimsically murmuring: \u201cDon\u2019t mind\ndress. Come in your blue stockings.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Stillingfleet\nwas so popular at these conversation parties, that \u201cblew stockings,\u201d as he was\ncalled, was in great request. By one of\nthe ironic subtleties of nomenclature, a term originally applied to a man was\ngradually transferred in deepened tint to the women of these assemblies. It was\na name, \u201cfixed in playful stigma,\u201d as one of the circle happily phrased it.\nFor, though bluestockings were estimable women, individually held in high\nhonour, the epithet \u201cblue,\u201d if not a designation of scorn like les femmes\nsavantes, held at least a grain of goodhumoured malice; possibly, because few\nof them were free from what their \u201cqueen,\u201d with frank self-criticism, called,\n\u201cthe female frailty of displaying more learning than is necessary or graceful.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n From: The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907\u201321).Volume XI. The Period of the French Revolution.Chapter XV. The Bluestockings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, as the above quote notes, learned women were not seen as “quite the thing” at this point in history,and eventually the term became almost a term of abuse, and was and still is applied to anyone displaying a pedantic nature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Blue stockings were a group of intellectual women (and some men) who met together in the 18th century to discuss mostly literary matters, as opposed to meeting together at card parties and routs. Notable members of the circle were Elizabeth … Continue reading
\n\u201cSuch was the excellence of his conversation,\u201d wrote Boswell, \u201cthat it came to\nbe said, we can do nothing without the blue stockings, and thus, by degrees,\nthe title was established.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n