Sense and sensibility : Mary Wollstonecraft as Active Witness to History | Zendy

Nathalie Zimpfer | Zendy

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Sense and sensibility : Mary Wollstonecraft as Active Witness to History

Author(s) -

Nathalie Zimpfer

Publication year - 2011

Publication title -

études épistémè

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

ISSN - 1634-0450

DOI - 10.4000/episteme.633

Subject(s) - witness , sensibility , philosophy , literature , sublimation (psychology) , aesthetics , history , psychoanalysis , art , psychology , linguistics

This article aims to show that in A Vindication of the Rights of Men Mary Wollstonecraft redefines historical practice by turning satire into a mode of historical cognition. Satire is here understood as a form of aesthetic sublimation of the violence inherent in polemical discourse. Wollstonecraft thus seeks to delegitimize Edmund Burke’s rendition of the French Revolution and, beyond, Burke himself as a historian, notably by feminizing him while presenting herself as an active witness to history.

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