Sandrine Berges
  • Home
  • Liberty in thy name!
  • The Philosophy of Domesticity
    • The Home: A Philosophical Project
  • Women Philosophers Calendars
  • Research
  • Public Philosophy
  • Events
    • Wollstonecraft at Bilkent
    • Bridging the Gender Gap Through Time
    • Wollapalooza
    • Wollapalooza II
  • Historical zombies and other fiction
  • Teaching
  • Crafts and things
  • Feminist History of Philosophy

Liberty in their Names

Get the Free Calendar
Order the book!

A Famous Man of France: Mary Shelley's Life of Madame Roland

12/5/2017

0 Comments

 
In 1839 and 1840, Mary Shelley published her two-volume Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of France. This was part of ten volumes of biography published in the 133 volumes series of Dionysius Lardner: Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829–46)
The series was designed to educate the Middle classes.

​
In her volumes on famous French men, out of 15 lives, 3 were women: Madame de Sevigne, Madame de Stael and Madame Roland.
 
This may seem a low percentage for the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft. And indeed, there were women writing biographies of famous women, for instance, her mother's friend Mary Hays, who wrote Female Biography: or Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women of All Ages and Countries. But Shelley, one must remember is  a history book designed for readers of both sexes, in which she includes women. So in a sense her inclusion of these three women alongside 12 well known and respected men (Voltaire, Rabelais, Fenelon, Pascal, Mirabeau, Racine, Corneille, Moliere, Boileau, Rochefoucault, Rousseau and Condorcet) is more daring than a book solely about women, which may not be taken seriously at all by male readers. 

So what did Shelley say about Manon?

Disappointingly, she focuses on her virtues as a wife and mother: 
​
​She was her husband's friend, companion, amanuensis; fearful of the temptations of the world, she gave herself up to labour; she soon became absolutely necessary to him at every moment, and in all the incidents of his life; her servitude was thus sealed; now and then it caused a sigh; but the holy sense of duty reconciled her to every inconvenience.

She was probably not aware, because it was not revealed until the early 20th century, that Roland had all but left her husband, before she went to prison, and that she was in love with their friend and colleague Buzot. Both men committed suicide shortly after her death. 

What I found more interesting, and which again may have been a function of how many of Roland's papers had been released at the time Shelley was writing, is her representation fo Roland as an activist, rather than a writer. 
​Her fame rests even on higher and noble grounds than that of those who toil with brain for the instruction of their fellow creatures. She acted. What she wrote is more the emanation of the active principle, which, pent in a prison, betook itself to the only implement, the pen, left to wield, than an exertion of the reflective portion of the mind.

Shelley might well be forgiven for thinking that Roland was a doer more than she was a thinker, if she was acquainted mostly with the prison memoirs, and with Roland’s reputation as a ring-leader, or egeria of the Girondists. The picture, however, is far from accurate. Manon Roland was a writer – producing hundreds of well crafted letters in which she presents philosophical as well as political reflections, writing essays and travel journals which she would not publish in her own name. 

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    About

    This is where I live blog about my new book project, an intellectual biography of three French Revolutionary women philosophers.

    Categories

    All
    1789
    1793
    Abolitionism
    America
    Biography
    Bonheur Primitif
    Brissot
    Cabanis
    Champ De Mars Massacre
    Charity
    Charlotte Corday
    Childhood
    Conciergerie
    Condorcet
    Declaration Of The Rights Of Man
    Dumont
    Education
    England
    Eon
    Feminism
    Frances Wright
    Gender
    Germaine De Stael
    Ghostwriting
    Guillotine
    Haiti
    Hannah Mather Crocker
    Helvetius
    HIstorians
    Journalism
    La Fayette
    Les Trois Urnes
    Letters
    Letters On Sympathy
    Louise Keralio
    Macaualy
    Manon Roland
    Mary Shelley
    Memoir
    Olympe De Gouges
    Paine
    Painting
    Paris
    Pregnancy
    Prison
    Religion
    Roland
    Rousseau
    Saint-Domingue
    Salons
    September Massacres
    Sexism
    Sieyes
    Slavery
    Sophie De Grouchy
    Terror
    Theatre
    The Great Fear
    Theroigne De Mericourt
    Translation
    Trial
    Wollstonecraft

    Archives

    November 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    March 2021
    February 2021
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Liberty in thy name!
  • The Philosophy of Domesticity
    • The Home: A Philosophical Project
  • Women Philosophers Calendars
  • Research
  • Public Philosophy
  • Events
    • Wollstonecraft at Bilkent
    • Bridging the Gender Gap Through Time
    • Wollapalooza
    • Wollapalooza II
  • Historical zombies and other fiction
  • Teaching
  • Crafts and things
  • Feminist History of Philosophy