Anna Barbauld and Charlotte Smith on War and Acquiescence

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 119-139
Author(s):  
Andrew Lincoln
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Charlotte Smith ◽  
Social Unrest ◽  
Civil Disorder ◽  
Anna Barbauld ◽  
Manor House ◽  
Two Sides

This essay considers works published by two women writers as Britain was preparing for hostilities against revolutionary France in 1793: a Fast Day sermon, Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation, published anonymously by Anna Barbauld, Charlotte Smith’s novel The Old Manor House, and her blank verse poem The Emigrants. It considers how these works, which condemn the guilt arising from war, expose the problem of necessary acquiescence in what is condemned. Taken together, the writings illuminate two sides of the problem. As a Dissenter, Barbauld belonged to a social group that, during the early years of the French revolution, had reason to feel especially vulnerable to the threat of civil disorder; she therefore had a particular incentive to see the horrors of war abroad in relation to the fear of social unrest at home. For Smith, who identified herself publicly with the landowning classes, and who desired socially appropriate positions for her children, such horrors had to be set against the material opportunities made available by war. In both cases the representation of sympathy for the victims of war provides a way out of the moral impasse they encounter.

Drama/Theatre and Democratisation: What Two Revolutions Reveal

2021 ◽  
pp. 43-63
Author(s):  
Courtney Helen Grile
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Ongoing Process ◽  
Velvet Revolution ◽  
The French Revolution

This paper will assert that drama/theatre has a role to play in the democratisation process by presenting research that reveals how various forms of drama/theatre practice coincide with democratisation or its opposite, de-democratisation. Correlation between the use of monologic and dialogic discourses within drama/theatre practice and the process of democratisation will be evidenced in two case studies: the early years of the French Revolution and the 1989 Velvet Revolution in (the former) Czechoslovakia. By analysing the conditions and patterns of theatre practice that coincided with the democratisation of these two countries (and in one case, away from it soon after), parallels emerge between monologic discourses within drama/theatre and de-democratisation, and dialogic discourses within drama/theatre and democratisation. The great experiment of liberal democracy is an ongoing process that can be buttressed by process-based theatre practices that exemplify theatre’s ability to foster dialogue and create community amongst participants.

The Archaeology of the French Revolution

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarita Diaz-Andreu
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
Professional Discipline ◽  
The People ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The French Revolution

The nineteenth century saw the emergence of both nationalism and archaeology as a professional discipline. The aim of this chapter is to show how this apparent coincidence was not accidental. This discussion will take us into uncharted territory. Despite the growing literature on archaeology and nationalism (Atkinson et al. 1996; Díaz-Andreu & Champion 1996a; Kohl & Fawcett 1995; Meskell 1998), the relationship between the two during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries has yet to be explored. The analysis of how the past was appropriated during this era of the revolutions, which marked the dawn of nationalism, is not helped by the specialized literature available on nationalism, as little attention has been paid to these early years. Most authors dealing with nationalism focus their research on the mid to late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the ideas that emerged during the era of the revolutions bore fruit and the balance between civic and ethnic nationalism (i.e. between a nationalism based on individual rights and the sovereignty of the people within the nation and another built on the common history and culture of the members of the nation) definitively shifted towards the latter. The reluctance to scrutinize the first years of nationalism by experts in the field may be a result of unease in dealing with a phenomenon which some simply label as patriotism. The term nationalism was not often used at the time. The political scientist Tom Nairn (1975: 6) traced it back to the late 1790s in France (it was employed by Abbé Baruel in 1798). However, its use seems to have been far from common, to the extent that other scholars believed it appeared in 1812. In other European countries, such as England, ‘nationalism’ was first employed in 1836 (Huizinga 1972: 14). Despite this disregard for the term itself until several decades later, specialists in the Weld of nationalism consider the most common date of origin as the end of the eighteenth century with the French Revolution as the key event in its definition.

Paine, Thomas (1737–1809)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kuklick
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Political System ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Thomas Paine ◽  
Political Propaganda ◽  
Age Of Reason ◽  
Revolutionary Politics

Thomas Paine, born in Norfolk, England, spent his early years as an undistinguished artisan and later excise officer. In 1774 he emigrated to America and settled in Philadelphia where he became a journalist and essayist. His Common Sense (1776) and sixteen essays on The Crisis (1776–83) were stunning examples of political propaganda and theorizing. In the late 1780s, in Europe, Paine wrote The Rights of Man (1791–2) and attacked the English political system. During the French Revolution he was a Girondin in the French Convention and wrote The Age of Reason (1794, 1796), savagely criticizing Christianity. He died in New York in 1809, an important figure in the sweep of the revolutionary politics in America, England, and France at the end of the eighteenth century.

FAVIER'S HEIRS: THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE SECRET DU ROI

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 225-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
GARY SAVAGE
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
Marie Antoinette ◽  
Revolutionary Politics ◽  
The One ◽  
Unofficial Diplomacy ◽  
The French Revolution

In contrast to the prevailing historiographical consensus, this essay will seek to demonstrate that there was a widespread and persistent concern with foreign policy in the early years of the French Revolution, the product of the interplay between inherited diplomatic assumptions on the one hand and revolutionary politics and values on the other. In particular, it will show how and why public opinion in France after 1789 abandoned its pre-revolutionary concern with Britain, Russia, and the global balance of commercial power in favour of Austria, the émigrés, and the security of the frontiers. In this light, considerable attention will be given to the development of Austrophobia in the period. Rooted in traditional French distrust of the Habsburg dynasty and reinforced by widespread opposition to the Austrian alliance of 1756, this would find its most virulent expression in the popular myth of a sinister counter-revolutionary ‘Austrian committee’ headed by Marie-Antoinette. The argument of the essay will turn upon the links between the emergence of that myth and the popularization of the ideas of Louis XV's unofficial diplomacy – the secret du roi – and its outspoken apologist Jean-Louis Favier. Adopted by various disciples after his death in 1784, Favier's ideas gained in popularity as the menace of counter-revolutionary invasion – aroused in particular by the emperor's reoccupation of the Austrian Netherlands in July 1790 – began to dominate the popular forums of revolutionary politics. They would ultimately help to generate a political climate in which the Brissotins could engineer an almost universally popular declaration of war against Austria less than two years after the revolutionaries had declared peace and friendship to the entire world. From this perspective, the growth of Austrophobia between 1789 and 1792 and its profound influence on the development of revolutionary foreign policy might usefully be described as the triumph of ‘Favier's heirs’.

Reviewing Women: Women Reviewers on Women Novelists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Peiser
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Print Media ◽  
Women's Writing ◽  
Women Novelists ◽  
Monthly Review ◽  
History Of ◽  
Multiple Issues ◽  
Anna Barbauld ◽  
Women’S Writing

What is the place of women writers in literary history, and the history of women’s print media? Megan Peiser’s chapter answers these questions through the specific lens of Romantic women reviewers’ assessments of work by Romantic women novelists. The chapter begins by accounting for the difficulties of its approach. Since periodical voices are often collaborative, anonymous/pseudonymous and published serially they require readers to chase their commitment to these publications through multiple issues rather than declaring completeness and authority through a single accessible printing. The chapter proceeds with detailed accounts of the reviewing careers of Elizabeth Moody and Anna Barbauld and how they used their contingent presence as writers for the Monthly Review (1749–1844) to bolster the works of women writers of the period in a medium that has traditionally been perceived to be hostile to women’s writing.

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