Ever wonder what's the book Mr. Collins tries to read Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters in Pride and Prejudice? Well, it's called Fordyce's Sermons and it lays out the Regency Era's standards for an ideal girl and woman. In this video, we talk about what these sermons are, and what they have to say about women's role in the English Georgian society Jane Austen grew up in.


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Disclaimer
I am not promoting or agreeing with what Fordyce taught. I am simply presenting this information for its historical, cultural and literary value, so that we can understand Pride and Prejudice and the world Jane Austen lived in better.

Watching Guide
00:00 How to Be the Ideal Regency Era Girl [Intro]
00:34 What are Fordyce's Sermons? Sermons to Young Women
02:45 Why did Jane Austen have Mr Collins read Fordyce?
03:37 How to be the Ideal Regency Girl according to James Fordyce
03:58 Women's Purpose in Life
04:56 Being Pretty is Ideal
05:55 Rank and Position in Society
06:47 Have Selfesteem (this isn't a Dove commercial)
09:34 Girl Power, 1700s style
10:15 A Virtuous Woman's Effect on Men
11:44 The Ideal Girl in the Family
12:25 Daughters: How Not to Be Lydia Bennet
13:43 Wives: How Not to Be Mrs Bennet
14:21 Duty to Country
15:17 Conclusion

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Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Novel https://go.magik.ly/ml/1u43m/
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Audiobook read by Rosamund Pike: https://amzn.to/3MTE1Iy

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Learn More

Cott, N. (1978). Passionlessness: An Interpretation of Victorian Ideology, 17901850. Signs, 4(2), 219236. Retrieved January 29, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173022

Ford, S. A. (2013). Mr. Collins Interrupted: Reading Fordyce’s Sermons with Pride and Prejudice. Persuasions, 31(1). Retrieved Jan 29, 2021, from http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/onl...

Fordyce, J., Todd, J., & Gregory, J. (1996). Sermons for young women, 1766. London: William Pickering.

Gordon, A. (2020, December 28). Dictionary of National Biography, 1900/Fordyce, James. Retrieved January 29, 2021, from https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictio...

Vorachek, Laura, "Intertextuality and Ideology: Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' and James Fordyce's 'Sermons to Young Women'" (2005). English Faculty Publications. 1. https://ecommons.udayton.edu/eng_fac_...

Music used in this video from: https://www.epidemicsound.com/referra...

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