Mary Wollstonecraft as Historian in An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution ; and the Effect it has Produced in Europe (1794)

Mary Wollstonecraft’s An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution (1794), while a work of compilation, is also, as the Monthly Review stated, a book which she wrote « not like an annalist, but like a philosopher ». This article argues that there are contradiction...

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Main Author: Isabelle Bour
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Institut du Monde Anglophone 2010-04-01
Series:Etudes Epistémè
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/668
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author Isabelle Bour
author_facet Isabelle Bour
author_sort Isabelle Bour
collection DOAJ
description Mary Wollstonecraft’s An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution (1794), while a work of compilation, is also, as the Monthly Review stated, a book which she wrote « not like an annalist, but like a philosopher ». This article argues that there are contradictions and inconsistencies in Mary Wollstonecraft’s representation of the early events of the French Revolution, and that those are due to her reliance on two broadly incompatible models – the Scottish Enlighteners’ account of historical development, and the paradigm of sensibility inflected by fantastic gothic characterisation ; the depiction of a perverted sensibility in France’s social élites recasts political and economic problems as psychological and moral ones.
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spelling doaj-art-df30f5b54d2e446183c152b9803d0f082025-08-20T03:07:50ZengInstitut du Monde AnglophoneEtudes Epistémè1634-04502010-04-011710.4000/episteme.668Mary Wollstonecraft as Historian in An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution ; and the Effect it has Produced in Europe (1794)Isabelle BourMary Wollstonecraft’s An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution (1794), while a work of compilation, is also, as the Monthly Review stated, a book which she wrote « not like an annalist, but like a philosopher ». This article argues that there are contradictions and inconsistencies in Mary Wollstonecraft’s representation of the early events of the French Revolution, and that those are due to her reliance on two broadly incompatible models – the Scottish Enlighteners’ account of historical development, and the paradigm of sensibility inflected by fantastic gothic characterisation ; the depiction of a perverted sensibility in France’s social élites recasts political and economic problems as psychological and moral ones.https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/668
spellingShingle Isabelle Bour
Mary Wollstonecraft as Historian in An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution ; and the Effect it has Produced in Europe (1794)
Etudes Epistémè
title Mary Wollstonecraft as Historian in An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution ; and the Effect it has Produced in Europe (1794)
title_full Mary Wollstonecraft as Historian in An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution ; and the Effect it has Produced in Europe (1794)
title_fullStr Mary Wollstonecraft as Historian in An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution ; and the Effect it has Produced in Europe (1794)
title_full_unstemmed Mary Wollstonecraft as Historian in An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution ; and the Effect it has Produced in Europe (1794)
title_short Mary Wollstonecraft as Historian in An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution ; and the Effect it has Produced in Europe (1794)
title_sort mary wollstonecraft as historian in an historical and moral view of the origin and progress of the french revolution and the effect it has produced in europe 1794
url https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/668
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