Mary Wollstonecraft and the Accent of the Feminine

174 Pages·2002·0.96 MB·English

by  Ashley Tauchert (auth.)

Mary Wollstonecraft and
the Accent of the Feminine
Ashley Tauchert
Mary Wollstonecraft and the Accent of the Feminine

Mary Wollstonecraft and

the Accent of the

Feminine

Ashley Tauchert
Lecturer in English
University of Exeter
Q Ashley Tauchert, 2002
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2002 978-0-333-96346-3
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First published 2002 by
PALGRAVE
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010
Companies and representatives throughout the world
PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of
St. Martin's Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and
Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd).
ISBN 978-1-349-42759-8 ISBN 978-0-230-28735-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230287358
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tauchert, Ashley.
Mary Wollstonecraft and the accent of the feminine / Ashley Tauchert.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.

1. Wollstonecraft, Mary, 1759±1797ÐCriticism and interpretation.
2. Feminism and literatureÐEnglandÐHistoryÐ18th century. 3. Women
and literatureÐEnglandÐHistoryÐ18th century. 4. Sex differences
(Psychology) in literature. 5. Femininity in literature. 6. Self in literature.
I. Title.
PR5841.W8 Z798 2001
8280.609Ðdc21
2001036153
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02
This book is written in celebration of the life and work of
Barbara Elizabeth (Whenmouth) Tauchert

Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction: Female Embodiment and Writing 1

The Athenic mode 8

Part I Remembering Elizabeth Dickson and

Fanny Blood 17

1 Love between Women ± Wollstonecraft's

Early Writings 19

Cherchez la meÁre 23

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787) 26

Original Stories (1788) 29

Mary: A Fiction (1788) 33

Part II Female Embodiment and the Body-Politic 53

2 Female Embodiment, Rape, and the Vindications 55

Vindicating masculine virtue 58

Ten thousand swords 61

Female-embodied reason 63

Leaving out the mother 65

Vindicating women: the problem that is women's

writing 68

This tumultuous passion 72

The phantom phallus 78

Part III Matrilineal Writing 81

3 The Pregnant Writer: Historical and Moral

View of the French Revolution 83

The body of the people 88

Castrated and potent maternal bodies 90

4 Matrilineal Writing: Letters from Sweden and

Wrongs of Woman 97

vii
viii Contents
The story as of woman 101

Imported into another economy . . . 102

Women are `products' used and exchanged

by men . . . 103

The murder of the mother results [in] the burial of

the madness of women ± and the burial of women

in madness ± 105

Speaking-among-women/speaking (as) woman 107

Feminist sublime where all foundations are called

into question 111

Letters from Sweden: my babe 118

The subject of matrilineal writing 126

Conclusion: Female Embodiment and Writing

beyond Wollstonecraft 131

Rape and intersubjectivity 134

Fantasies of the feminist in wet skirts 139

Notes 145

Bibliography 153

Index 167
Acknowledgements

This book could not have been produced without the support and
encouragement (not to mention work) of Peter Swaab, Gill Howie,
Regenia Gagnier, Jane Spencer, Raymond Tauchert, Mark Tauchert
and Becky Peters, and anyone who has ever looked after my
children for me or written a reference for me. And thanks to the
two anonymous readers who helped to shape the argument.
It is dedicated, as is everything I am and do, to the dream of a better
future for Jack, Alice and Georgie, and would not have been possible
without their special brand of love and wisdom.
And, as ever, written for and with my dearest friend and partner,
who makes everything possible . . .
Earlier varations on the arguments made in this book have been
published in the following journals: Women's Writing, 4.2.1977;
QWERTY: Arts, LitteÂratures et Civilisations du Moude Anglophone, 9
(October 1999); Romanticism on the Net (May 2000).
ix