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![]() In response to Catherine's complaint that history is wearisome and dull, Eleanor cites her own pleasure in consuming the vibrant and incisive writing of historians David Hume and William Robertson. ![]() Metonymically, Eleanor Tilney represents women's intellectual, textual, and aesthetic engagement with history in the late eighteenth century. Focusing primarily on the micro-history of Northanger Abbey rather than on the macro-history of international war or trade, Eleanor acts as cultural guide, unveiling multiple layers of associative memory and historical meaning for Catherine. As she walks and converses with Catherine, Eleanor highlights the roles architectural, familial, and even ecological spaces play in constructing cultural history. ![]() ![]() In her novel Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen presents Eleanor Tilney's observations on past feminine presence as a gentle corrective to her heroine Catherine Morland's initial rejection of history as militant and masculinist. ![]()
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