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Freedom And The French Revolution

An analysis of the literary debates surrounding the French Revolution (Wollstonecraft, Godwin, Burke, Paine)

Date : 10/07/2020

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Priya

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Uploaded on : 10/07/2020
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And now, methinks, I see the ardour for liberty catching and spreading a general amendment beginning in human affairs the dominion of kings changed for the dominion of laws, and the dominion of priests giving way to the dominion of reason and conscience. (RICHARD PRICE)

In the titular quotation, Price reflects upon the growing ardour for liberty within English society in the early 1790s. British radicalism, which grew from a long tradition of hostility to the ruling oligarchy and [ ] aristocratic social hierarchy, flourished in the wake of the French Revolution and the new age of liberty it supposedly signalled. Although writers like Burke were vocal in their opposition to the Revolution and its ideals, the events on the Continent stimulated intense political debate within Britain and deeply polarized public opinion on the question of reforming the British constitution . Notably, they led to the birth of English Jacobinism, a movement which might best be described as a state of mind, a cluster of indignant sensibilities, a faith in reason, a vision of the future. It was also closely bound up with the tradition of radical dissent, a body of thought that was largely mechanistic, necessitarian and progressive in nature. Building on the earlier rational theories of John Locke and Richard Price [which] asserted the natural rights of all men , the leading radical theorists of the time often adopted and applied the philosophical terms of the Enlightenment to their current socio-political environment, and argued for the freedom of people from class domination and the primacy of man s natural rights in the face of an oppressive social structure. Particularly significant to this debate were the works of Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, who were responding to the criticisms of the French Revolution propounded by Burke in his popular Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Burke, who had aligned himself with the political opposition, the Rockingham Whigs, [was known for] promoting a variety of progressive causes, and thus his attack on the French Revolution surprised and incensed many of his fellow intellectuals. The radical writers responded in a variety of ways, each bringing with them their own series of subtexts and issues of particular interest. Although Paine s Rights of Man (1791) was by far the most popular radical response to Burke s Reflections at the time, a further analysis of his language reveals a level of rhetorical craftsmanship that was not dissimilar to his more conservative political opponent. While Paine attempted to express his liberal arguments through the objective language of reason and non-fiction prose, Godwin adopted the genre of the novel in order to bring the politics of freedom into the personal realm. Things as They Are or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794) was defined in Godwin s original preface as a project that would move beyond refined and abstract speculation into a detailed, material study of things passing in the moral world it was a way of expressing the need for political reform by showing how the spirit and character of the government intrudes itself into every rank of society . If, then, Paine attempted to refute Burke s anti-Revolution principles in the direct language of prose, and Godwin sought to personalise contemporary class relations through the example of an oppressive tyrant and his victim, Wollstonecraft s work can be seen as encompassing both methods. Her Vindication on the Rights of Men and Vindication on the Rights of Woman engage with contemporary discussions of political freedom in the form of rational non-fiction prose however, whilst they attack the foundations of Burke s conservative treatise, they also extend the politics of liberty to women s social freedoms, and argue for a restructuring of gender relationships founded upon equalities of opportunity and respect. Thus, it is clear that Wollstonecraft, Godwin and Paine employed a variety of ideological and literary approaches to examine and discredit popular conservative politics. It is through a close analysis of their language, rhetoric and literary tropes that we, as critics, might be able to assess the means by which each writer propounded their ideals of freedom, and to discern how closely their political arguments were dependent upon their modes and methods of communication.

Price s observation of society sets up a dichotomy between the dominion of kings and the dominion of laws the dominion of priests and the dominion of reason and conscience . In this, he reflects a much wider mode of thought within the radical literary sphere of the time: the opposition of sensibility/tradition with the rational philosophies of the Jacobins, and their supposedly more lawful and egalitarian ideas about social hierarchy. In order to understand how these two intellectual forces interacted with one another and informed contemporary discussions of liberty, one must first look to the definition of Sensibility and what it came to represent to conservatives such as Burke. Sensibility, closely linked with Sentimentalism, was a means of understanding the world through sensational theories of knowledge it emphasised the relationship between the senses, the emotions and reason and as such placed a great deal of emphasis on traditions and worldly experience, as opposed to philosophical arguments founded upon untested reason with no basis in individual feelings. Linguistically, this manifested as a strong emphasis on manners and chivalry, a criticism of disruptive politics, a highly gendered worldview, and the frequent use of evocative (and often hyperbolic) rhetoric as a means of playing on readers moral sympathies. All of these techniques can be seen in Burke s Reflections he alternates between an incensed rebuttal of revolutionary politics and a fa ade of dignified composure in his attacks on Price and other radicals. His performed humility and focus on manners permeates the entirety of the text: I should think it at least improper and irregular for me to open a formal public correspondence with the actual government of a foreign nation [ but] If the prudence of reserve and decorum dictates silence in some circumstances, in others prudence of a higher order may justify us in speaking our thoughts. Although he employs a lexis of gallantry, his urbane attitude does not stop him from criticising his opponents, as seen in his attack on Price: Doctor Richard Price, a non-conforming minister of eminence, preached [ ] to his club or society, a very extraordinary miscellaneous sermon, in which there are some good moral and religious sentiments, and not ill expressed, mixed up in a sort of porridge of various political opinions and reflections but the Revolution in France is the grand ingredient in the cauldron. Here, Burke undermines the validity of Price s sermon whilst maintaining an air of sophistication. He uses litotes ( not ill expressed ) and restrained approval ( there are some good moral and religious sentiments ) to soften his criticism, whilst simultaneously employing the imagery of food and alchemy to present Price s argument as muddled and convoluted. He later presents his argument in more direct terms, linking the French Revolution to a wider destruction of traditional values:

the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom.

In this quotation, Burke s language is hyperbolic, almost histrionic, in tone he imagines the Revolution as the hailing in of a European apocalypse. Furthermore, he utilises chivalric imagery, with its intrinsic idealization of the ancient institutions of monarchy and aristocracy, [...] as an ideological resource to galvanize patriotic sentiment and denounce the Jacobin cause thus establish[ing] an inseparable link between aesthetics and politics. Interestingly, he also describes seemingly paradoxical states as the traditionalist ideal: proud submission , dignified obedience , and the spirit of an exalted freedom [ ] even in servitude itself . His language is paternalistic, and affirms social hierarchies through the linguistic elevation/affirmation of states of servitude. This sentiment is repeated throughout the Reflections, such as when Burke describes the protecting restraint and wholesome darkness of [a prisoner s] cell a direct contrast to the images of imprisonment found in Godwin s Caleb Williams. Unlike Burke s suggestion of a kind of freedom in chains , Godwin s work reveals that freedom can only be attained through self-possession, and that restrictive social bonds (either through the imprisonment system or in the more general master/servant dynamic) are an inevitable obstacle to individual liberty. Falkland, the tormentor of the novel s protagonist, is Caleb s master and tyrant, and his latter role is intrinsic to the former. It is through Falkland s elevated socioeconomic standing that he is able to manipulate popular perceptions of Caleb, subjecting him to constant observation and stripping him of that most fundamental right, the ownership of oneself. Despite Caleb s attempts to flee, he is unable to attain freedom revealing that As long as an individual cannot claim the Lockean right of property that is, owns the property in oneself then one is subject to ownership by another. This is also shown in the subplot of Emily Melvile as a woman unprotected by status or the right of property, she is subject to the brutalities of family members who regard her as their property . Ultimately, her demise comes from a very specific kind of domestic tyranny not simply social dominion, but male socioeconomic dominion. Her story is a model for the fate of women in a state where domestic tyranny is reciprocally supported by political despotism , and further explored in the works of Wollstonecraft, as she delves even deeper into the gendering of social relations that continue to deprive individuals of their freedom. Emily s story also foreshadows the fate of Caleb, and both characters function as a means of personalising the revolutionary spirit, and the human desire for liberty. Caleb s desire for autonomy is described through visceral language his animal system undergoes a total revolution , and his whole soul revolted against the treatment [he] endured at the hands of his oppressor. Although he is at first in awe of his master s civility, he soon becomes aware of the inherent power imbalance within their dynamic, and even though he retains a sense of admiration for his oppressor he also realises that the restrictions of his freedom are a greater crime than any other that might be committed against him:

Oh, God! give me poverty! Shower upon me all the imaginary hardships of human life! I will receive them with all thankfulness. Turn me a prey to the wild beasts of the desert, so I be never again the victim of man, dressed in the gore-dripping robes of authority! Suffer me at least to call life, the pursuits of life, my own!

Here, the reader is given a privileged insight into the perspective of the protagonist a man who has been victimised at the hands of a social system that deems his right to freedom less valid than that of his fellow man. The novel form that Godwin employs enables readers to feel that injustice and recognise it as their own, and through the genre s structures of fictitiousness he is able to present a more intimate and immediate realisation of the political and social landscape upon the individual. It is also important to note, briefly, that the structures of oppression within Godwin s novel are not more malignant than those propounded by Burke the first volume of the work is dedicated to humanising the tyrant, presenting him as a figure of chivalry, learning and intense feeling. Unlike Tyrrel, Falkland is not naturally barbaric, and indeed it is his self-fashioning as a man of sensibility that enable him to persecute Caleb without reprimand. His high reputation and reverence of social codes of conduct shield his true crimes from the community, and moreover are the impetus of his criminal activity. His motivation for hounding Caleb comes from his fervent desire to maintain a chivalric reputation: His mind was fraught with all the rhapsodies of visionary honour and in his sense nothing but the grosser part, the mere shell of Falkland, was capable of surviving the wound that his pride has sustained. Thus it is clear that Falkland, just like Burke, may be presenting himself as a figure of sensitivity and manners, but in reality this is simply a fa ade to justify the extension of their own social domination and the oppression of others.

Just as Godwin critiques the use of sensibility as a means of maintaining social hierarchies, so do Wollstonecraft and Paine however, unlike Godwin, they mount their attacks upon the method of Burke s argument his carefully crafted rhetoric, which attempts to beautify and justify traditions of social inequality. Just as Burke founds his argument on the diction of Sensibility, Paine bases his own arguments in the language of philosophical reason and political facts. Rights of Man, arguably the most popular contemporary response to Burke s Reflections, is written in vernacular prose with rational republicanism at its heart. It frequently criticises Burke, not only for his ideology but also for its articulation: Is this the language of a rational man? Is it the language of a heart feeling as it ought to feel for the rights and happiness of the human race? He employs damning metaphors to highlight the vacuous nature of Burke s eloquence, and in doing so builds up a contrast between his reasonable arguments and the eloquent sophistry of his adversary:

I know a place in America called Point-no-Point, because as you proceed along the shore, gay and flowery as Mr. Burke s language, it continually recedes and presents itself at a distance before you but when you have got as far as you can go, there is no point at all. Just thus it is with Mr. Burke s three hundred and sixty-six pages. It is therefore difficult to reply to him.

Here, Paine is deliberately and self-consciously placing his own work, with its clearly delineated methodology/structure, against the digressive epistolary form of Burke s Reflections. Critics have noted that the epistolary form chosen by Burke admits of digression, resumption, studied negligence, artificial confusion, turns of thought and expression, flights of imagination, addresses to the passions, perhaps with more freedom and effect than any other mode of composition . The rhetorical flexibility enabled by this form is not simply a matter of style or personal preference it is a mode of writing that places emotion, immediate feeling and spontaneous reaction as paramount, and these functions render the form perfect for expressing Sensibility in an apparently organic form. Therefore by critiquing Burke s modes of expression and linguistic choices, Paine is also highlighting the follies of his opponent s argument and claims to the reason of Sensibility. He argues that far from any rational kind of emotion or Sensibility, the ideology of his opponent is based upon a kind of misplaced Sentimentalism, with a blind reverence to tradition that seeks to paint events in the manner that is the most emotive, rather than the most accurate. This false sentimentality, the rhapsody of [Burke s] imagination , is referenced throughout Paine s work:

As to the tragic paintings by which Mr. Burke has outraged his own imagination, and seeks to work upon that of his readers, they are very well calculated for theatrical representation, where facts are manufactured for the sake of show, and accommodated to produce, through the weakness of sympathy, a weeping effect. But Mr. Burke should recollect that he is writing history, and not plays, and that his readers will expect truth, and not the spouting rant of high-toned exclamation.

[Burke] is not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination [ ] His hero or his heroine must be a tragedy-victim expiring in show, and not the real prisoner of misery, sliding into death in the silence of a dungeon.

It suits his purpose to exhibit the consequences without their causes. It is one of the arts of the drama to do so. If the crimes of men were exhibited with their sufferings, stage effect would sometimes be lost, and the audience would be inclined to approve where it was intended they should commiserate.

This extended metaphor, of Burke creating a kind of drama or spectacle, works to devalue the emotion behind his Sensibility by linking it with the lexis of performativity. Indeed, one of the tragic paintings Paine is referring to is Burke s depiction of Marie Antoinette being forcibly removed by a revolutionary crowd from the royal palace at Versailles to Paris , as he likens her situation to that of a damsel in distress in medieval romance :

little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.

Although Burke s invocation of the age of chivalry worked to glorify and mythologise the ancien r gime, its hyperbolic rhetoric, anachronistic imagery and unabashed sentimentalism [ ] was ripe for parody , and enabled Paine to dismiss his opponent s arguments as the workings of fiction rather than fact. In contrast, Paine claimed the authority of philosophy over empty rhetoric, and his role in the wider dissenting tradition of the late 18th century led him to figure the political landscape through the language of Common Sense the name of one of his earlier pamphlets advocating the American Revolution. His language is often technical, he references Enlightenment thinkers and social contract theories rather than literary tropes and outdated nostalgia, and he explicitly claims to be informed by reason and conscience : In stating these matters, I speak an open and disinterested language, dictated by no passion but that of humanity. His criticisms of hereditary monarchy and social hierarchy are founded upon criticisms of Sensibility and the insistent clinging to tradition by contrast, he presents an egalitarian politics based on the natural rights of man and liberties of individuals to pursue governments which best represent their needs and interests. However, critics have noted that Paine s positioning of himself as a literary adversary to Burke is more than a little ironic, given that the two possess occult and striking resemblances . Although their political ideologies could not be more diametrically opposed, Paine s prose is crafted with the same level of care as Burke s, despite its affectations of simplicity. He is very conscious of his audience and the effect he wishe[s] to have on his readers , and employs figurative language and literary allusion as central pillars of his argument. For example, in his descri ptions of the French Revolution he likens the ancien regime to the Augean stables of parasites and plunderers[,] too abominably filthy to be cleansed by anything short of a complete and universal Revolution. His reference to the labours of Heracles is one of many intertextual allusions that enable him to build up an image of monarchical filth and corruption, which necessitated radically purifying change. Furthermore, Paine utilises metaphor to persuade readers of his own ideological convictions building on the religious basis which informs and strengthens his argument, he states that the present age will hereafter merit to be called the Age of Reason, and the present generation will appear to the future as the Adam of a new world. The biblical imagery perfectly mirrors that of Price s titular quotation unlike the dominion of priests and superstition which had governed the world up to that point, the new world would be based upon reason and conscience , a rational Christian philosophy that centred upon a natural code of morality and equality. Indeed, the natural order of Paine s beliefs is cemented in the final passages of his work, which end the treatise with an image of seasonal growth and change:

It is now towards the middle of February. Were I to take a turn into the country, the trees would present a leafless, wintery appearance. Yet people might by chance might observe that a single bud on a twig had begun to swell. I should reason very unnaturally to suppose this was the only bud in England which had this appearance. It is, however, not difficult to perceive that the spring is begun [ ] though the vegetable sleep will continue longer on some trees and plants than on others, and though some of them may not blossom for two or three years, all will be in leaf in the summer, except those which are rotten.

This concluding image, likening the political and ecological landscapes to one another, is central to Paine s argument and a far cry from the direct, simple language that he states is his medium. It reveals that although rhetoric have been fundamentally linked to political ideology, and hence linguistic criticism of the other s work is a means of dismantling their arguments, radical writers were as inclined to utilise the richly symbolic and aesthetic qualities of language to promulgate their own arguments.

Wollstonecraft, similarly to Paine, also mounts her critique upon Burke and his conservative ideology through the basis of rhetorical rebuttal however unlike her radical counterpart, her understandings of reason and feeling are fundamentally shaped by the sexual politics of her society. In criticising the language of Sensibility as a glorification of oppressive traditions, Wollstonecraft self-consciously appropriates and manipulates Burke s rhetoric in order to undermine his political beliefs. In her Vindication of the Rights of Men, Wollstonecraft dismisses Burke s pretty jargon as unintelligible , and argues that Eloquence has [ ] frequently rendered the boundary that separates virtue and vice doubtful. Thus, she states that she shall avoid that flowery diction which has slided from essays into novels, as it is drawn from little more than pretty nothings that drop glibly from the tongue, vitiate the taste, and create a kind of sickly delicacy that turns away from simple unadorned truth . Moreover, Wollstonecraft notes that this writing of Sensibility, with its emotion and chivalry, is able to cover up with its grand fa ade all manner of sins and injustices. She rails against Burke s theatrical attitudes and sentimental exclamations , arguing that: Sensibility is the manie of the day, and compassion the virtue which is to cover a multitude of vices, whilst justice is left to mourn in sullen silence, and balance truth in vain. In linking the aesthetic elegance of Sensibility with superficiality, she is denouncing Burke s emotive rhetoric as morally insincere and contrived, as well as challenging Burke s gothic notions of beauty which might appeal to emotion and prejudice . She is attacking both style and substance, opposing rational virtue to the language of sensibility and to a political morality based on an emotional predisposition towards the legacies of the past. However, she then goes further in her attempt to strip Burke of the gorgeous drapery in which [he has] enwrapped [his] tyrannic principles , by adopting and appropriating Burke s own aesthetic theories to subvert his message. In his early work, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757), Burke described aesthetic perceptions and sensations in gendered terms, distinguishing the masculine experience of the sublime from perceptions of the beautiful associated with a particular kind of femininity. In setting up this dichotomy between the masculine strength of the sublime and the feminine frailty of the beautiful, Burke damned his later work and its beautiful aesthetic language as fundamentally incompatible with any sense of judgement and power. Wollstonecraft needed only to highlight this in order to deflate Burke s arguments:

Judgment is sublime, wit beautiful and, according to your own theory, they cannot exist together without impairing each other s power. The predominancy of the latter, in your endless Reflections, should lead hasty readers to suspect that it may, in a great degree, exclude the former.

Not only does this statement criticise the aesthetics of Sensibility that are fundamentally linked to the traditional dominion of kings [and] priests , it also serves an equalising function in and of itself. Wollstonecraft, as a female writer, was often viewed by her contemporaries as a daughter of feeling whose professed allegiance to reason is never matched by rational performance , despite her emphasis on rational Christian morality and aesthetic modesty. In her criticisms of Burke s pretty language and pampered sensibility , she is reversing the traditional gendering of Sensibility by placing herself as a woman in the position of sublime reason, with him in the more hollow role of aesthetic beauty: You see I do not condescend to cull my words to avoid the invidious phrase, nor shall I be prevented from giving a manly definition of it . When she writes Quitting now the flowers of rhetoric, let us, Sir, reason together , she is not only placing herself in an equal position to him ideologically, but also in a position of equality as a freethinking individual a woman who is utilising her liberty to denounce the dominion of kings [and] priests and, indeed, all men who seek to undermine the value of female thought and worth. Converse to the social activities which make women the creatures of sensation , as outlined in her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, her lexis of rationality enables her to break from perceptions of feminine frailty and argue for female liberation on equal footing: I hope my own sex will excuse me if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood and unable to stand alone. Much of her focus on the rationality of a free and equal society comes from her Unitarian beliefs, which placed primacy on God-given reason as opposed to superstitions or traditions. Although she did not discount man s propensity to sentimentalism, she noted that the difference between melting feelings and rational satisfactions is their moral difference , where reason proves superior. However, despite Wollstonecraft utilising the aesthetic language of Sensibility to undermine her opponents arguments and validate her own, her relationship with the lexis and tropes of Sensibility is far more nuanced than a simple denunciation. Although she attacked Burke s sensibility as instinct deserted by reason , and feminised him in order to place herself on intellectually equal footing, she also commended natural sensibility a kind of feeling-based ethics founded upon a basis of reason and rational thought. This is perhaps best demonstrated in her statement:

A wild wish has just flown from my heart to my head, and I will not stifle it though it may excite a horse-laugh I do earnestly wish to see the distinction of sex confounded in society, unless where love animates the behaviour. For this distinction is, I am firmly persuaded, the foundation of the weakness of character ascribed to woman

It is interesting that here Wollstonecraft describes her desire for equality as originating in her heart and later passing through her head this suggests that arguments for freedom and equality may well come from a place of feeling and sensibility rather than reason, however they must be tempered with the mind s rational thought before they leave the individual. Indeed, this is an important caveat to Wollstonecraft, as she argues that if the passion is real (unlike the false exclamations of Burke s Sentimentalism), the head will not be ransacked for stale tropes and cold rodomontade. Her own writing does not shun emotionality, but rather it rejects Burke s form of Sensibility that maintains unequal social structures through a misguided sense of nostalgia and sympathy instead, she adopts an emotional argument that is informed by a rational comprehension of societal injustices, and seeks to ameliorate circumstances for the oppressed through the combination of reason and conscience .

In conclusion, it is clear that the works of Burke, Godwin, Paine and Wollstonecraft are in a constant dynamic with one another, and all of them seek to propound their own beliefs on the contemporary issues of political freedom that were reinvigorated in the wake of the French Revolution. As Burke allied his conservative politics with the aesthetics of Sensibility and medieval chivalry, his radical counterparts worked to devalue his arguments through critiques of not only his ideology but also his rhetoric. In each of their texts they utilised the literary richness of language to propound their own political beliefs, specifically those to do with class domination, hereditary monarchy and gender hierarchies, and to promote a narrative of a general amendment beginning in human affairs . Whilst Godwin s seminal Jacobin novel works to personalise contemporary political struggles by presenting a harrowing image of domestic tyranny, Paine and Wollstonecraft mount more direct attacks on the ideology of their opponent and its mode of communication. They both manipulate the language of sentimentality, rational argument, theatricality, and fictitiousness to discredit their opponents beliefs, and although Paine s carefully crafted rhetoric complicates the stylistic dichotomy between himself and Burke (which he is at pains to express), Wollstonecraft manages to adopt and appropriate Burke s language whilst still stressing the difference between the two. Where Paine s claims to directness seem questionable at times, Wollstonecraft s reason-based Sensibility is entirely believable and completely at contrast with Burke s conservative Sentimentality and overblown nostalgia. Moreover, Godwin and Wollstonecraft both show, to varying degrees, the impact of political restrictions upon individual freedoms, and specifically focus on how domestic tyranny (towards women and working class people) hinders their right to self-ownership and self-improvement. In each of the texts, however, it is clear that rhetoric is as important as the actual political thoughts within them, and that the boundary between aesthetics and ideology in the radical literature of the 1790s is highly equivocal.

Bibliography

Primary:

Burke, E. (2006). Reflections on the Revolution in France (Ebook central). Mineola, NY: Dover

Godwin, W. (2009) Caleb Williams (Oxford World`s Classics). Oxford: Clarendon.

Paine, T. (1984). Rights of Man (Penguin American library). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Wollstonecraft, M. (2008) A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and A Vindication of the Rights of Men (Oxford World s Classics). Oxford: Clarendon.

Secondary:

Blakemore, S. (1997). Intertextual war: Edmund Burke and the French Revolution in the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Paine, and James Mackintosh. London: Associated University Presses.

Cone, C. B. (1968). The English Jacobins: Reformers in Late Eighteenth Century England. New York: Charles Scribner`s Sons.

Conger, S. (1994). Mary Wollstonecraft and the language of sensibility. London : Associated University Presses.

Dart, G. (1999). Rousseau, Robespierre and English Romanticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dickinson, H. T. (1985). British Radicalism and the French Revolution, 1789 1815. Oxford: Blackwell.

Duff, D. (2011). Burke And Paine: Contrasts . In P. Clemit (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to British Literature of the French Revolution in the 1790s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Johnson, N. (2011). Wollstonecraft and Godwin: Dialogues . In P. Clemit (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to British Literature of the French Revolution in the 1790s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jones, C. (1993). Radical sensibility: Literature and ideas in the 1790s. London: Routledge.

Rendall, J. (2011). Wollstonecraft, Vindications and Historical And Moral View Of The French Revolution . In: P. Clemit (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to British Literature of the French Revolution in the 1790s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


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