Revolution and improvement in the writings of Jane Austen and Margaret Fuller

This dissertation explores and identifies the ways in which Jane Austen and Margaret Fuller internalized and engaged with the revolutionary ideas of their time, and entered the ideological transatlantic conversation women were having in the long eighteenth century to consider their place and role in society. It is my contention that each woman challenged her readers to evaluate how women could more rewardingly contribute to their own happiness. They did this by building on the transatlantic rhetorical tradition of the Enlightenment which challenged people to reconsider the individual's place in society, and that evolved into Romantic concerns about an individual's participation in society. Austen and Fuller are uniquely placed among the women writers of their respective nations, each influencing the thinking and work of contemporaries and later writers alike. Austen's established position in the canon as the best-remembered English female novelist of her generation, and Fuller's recently reclaimed position as the most influential American female thinker of her generation, make both women important touchstones in the nineteenth century. Studying them in concert, then, allows us an unique opportunity to explore not only how these two prominent women engaged rhetorically with the changing ideas circulating between their nations, but also allows us to examine and better understand how such rhetoric transcended genres and oceanic borders, pushing women's thinking forward.;I argue, then, that a faith in improvement became crucial to Austen and Fuller, and explore how both women saw individual reform as the way to transform society. Consequently, this project investigates each author's ideas on female education, challenging the notion that women could not learn deeply. It further questions why they believed improved education was the foundation to three key facets of women's lives: better social standing and financial independence; choosing (or not) a marriage partner; and women's impact on their community. My study historically contextualizes their published works examining the evolution of thought evident between Austen's novels and Fuller's analytical prose to demonstrate how ideological concerns transcended genres by promoting personal improvement to empower women to become the kind of educated and engaged individuals necessary for their families and communities.