Goodden, Angelica

PERSONAL:

Education: Holds a master's degree and a doctorate.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Oxford, England. Office—St. Hilda's College, Oxford University, Cowley Place, Oxford OX4 1DY, England.

CAREER:

St. Hilda's College, Oxford University, Oxford, England, fellow and tutor in French.

WRITINGS:

Actio and Persuasion: Dramatic Performance in Eighteenth-Century France, Clarendon Press (New York, NY), 1986.

The Complete Lover: Eros, Nature, and Artifice in the Eighteenth-Century French Novel, Clarendon Press (New York, NY), 1989.

(Editor) The Eighteenth-Century Body: Art, History, Literature, Medicine, Peter Lang (New York, NY), 2002.

Miss Angel: The Art and World of Angelica Kauffman, Pimlico (London, England), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS:

Angelica Goodden serves as a fellow and tutor in French and an admissions tutor in fine art at St. Hilda's College, Oxford University. Her research interests include the literary and artistic life of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Goodden has written or edited several books on that period, focusing on literature of the time, drama, and attitudes toward the body in art, history, science, and medicine. In Miss Angel: The Art and World of Angelica Kauffman, Goodden presents a revealing biography of the late-eighteenth-century artist. Kauffman was a hardworking artist whose career was largely overseen by her ambitious father. She became well known as a painter of historical and decorative scenes as well as portraits, and her professional services were avidly sought by both royalty and various members of European society. In a review for Booklist, contributor Donna Seaman wrote of Goodden's effort that "scholarship is matched by luscious prose and piquant opinion, adding up to an unusually lively artist's biography." A contributor for Kirkus Reviews noted that "Goodden's well-measured life of the artist may help bring Kauffman's oeuvre back to light." Writing for the Contemporary Review, one contributor remarked: "This well researched study gives us the first truly balanced portrait of the artist as superstar."

The Eighteenth-Century Body: Art, History, Literature, Medicine, for which Goodden served as editor, is a collection of essays based on a number of papers that were presented at Oxford University in July, 2001. The essays are the work of both American and European scholars in different fields and focus on a range of subjects having to do with eighteenth-century attitudes toward the human body. Amy S. Wyngaard, in a review for Symposium, wrote that "the essays are individually and collectively rich and dynamic, making a stimulating and memorable contribution to eighteenth-century studies."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 1, 2006, Donna Seaman, review of Miss Angel: The Art and World of Angelica Kauffman, p. 24.

Bookseller, November 11, 2005, Mohara Gill, review of Miss Angel, p. 13.

Contemporary Review, summer, 2006, review of Miss Angel, p. 262.

Financial Times, August 20, 2005, review of Miss Angel, p. 33.

Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2006, review of Miss Angel, p. 939.

Symposium, winter, 2005, Amy S. Wyngaard, review of The Eighteenth-Century Body: Art, History, Literature, Medicine, p. 272.

ONLINE

Guardian Online (London, England), http://books.guardian.co.uk/ (September 3, 2005), "The Softest Touch," review of Miss Angel.

Independent Online (London, England), http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/ (January 13, 2006), Clare Colvin, review of Miss Angel.