The Revolutionary Rhetoric of Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan)

My collection of books written by Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan)

From page 17 of my book: 

            Revolutionary philosophy of the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries provides momentum for the transformation of consciousness, circuitous pathways of innovation and circularity within societal parameters, creating awareness of cultural change, often through literary articulation. During the long eighteenth century, Sydney Owenson constructs her national tales by configuring lexical combinations of Irish, English and European colloquialisms, drawing upon the historical and philosophical perceptions of René Descartes, John Locke, and Immanuel Kant to transform her romantic tales into narratives of political inquiry. She incorporates the German philosophical influences of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Georg Wilhelm Friedriech Hegel, and Arthur Schopenhauer, initiating innovation in forms of cultural awareness. 

            As her writing matures, her nineteenth century contemporary scientific approach to human dignity resonates with Auguste Comte’s philosophy, revealing her personal experience with societal expectations. Her voice maintains a necessary fortitude in terms of her feminine perspective, placing Irish ideology into the center of English culture at the onset of the Ascendancy, while she illustrates foresight in challenging the political stance of the United Kingdom in the early decades of the nineteenth century. 

Revolutionary Thought Begins with Creative Emergence

'Equality Emerging' National University of Ireland, Galway, photo taken by me.

A revolutionary idea begins with a creative notion. In John Locke’s An Essay on Human Understanding, he states:

Wherever there is sense or perception, there some idea is, actually produced, and present in the understanding…we [have], as has been proved, no ideas at all, but what originally come either from sensible objects without, or what we feel within ourselves, from the inward workings of our own spirits, of which we are conscious to ourselves within. 

Below, is a poem I wrote a while ago to illustrate a similar consciousness that involves an appreciation of that which inspires:

A Creation   
With every minute

the mighty sculptor

molds, shapes me

into that which will

inevitably become

the fulfillment

of my dreams.

A Promise.

And I feel

the designated pliancy

of wondrous hands,

the angst

of sorrow and pain

blending

into sculpted reality

of laughter and joy,

I, the loving creation

of an almighty Artist.

© Jeanne I. Lakatos

A Brief Analysis of the Feminine in Sydney Owenson's Writing

Enjoy a cup of tea!

From pp. 128-130 of my book on the Rhetoric of Sydney Swenson (pictured on the right):

Drawing on traditional symbols of music, art and language, Owenson enlightens her readers concerning societal negligence. Her published collection of harp melodies, her visions of Innisfree and the beauty with which she symbolizes the people of Ireland whet the appetite for national pride within the souls of those who read her work in Ireland and England. She succeeds in feeding their hungry spirit with the sustenance of historical revelation.

The Irish historian, R. F. Foster comments, “Besides the numerous ambitious histories, written to invalidate or to justify the Union, there were novels like Lady Morgan’s The Wild Irish Girl (1806), which helped market the ideas of Irishness so influential later in the century (and ever since).” ^[1] All the while, she rhetorically explores the desire for Ireland to engage peacefully with the English government, represented by a similar desire for feminine ideology to receive the respect and recognition of men.

In the Preface of her 1814 novel, O’Donnel, Owenson sums up her true feelings of her purpose in writing: 

The character of my sex, no less than my own feelings, urged me, in touching those parts of Irish history which were connected with my tale, to turn them to the purposes of conciliation, and to incorporate the leaven of favourable opinion with that heavy mass of bitter prejudice, which writers, both grave and trifling have delighted to raise against my country. (O’Donnel, p. 10)

Clearly, Owenson is conscious of her British, aristocratic audience as she utilizes rhetorical representation of her feminine experience in direct correlation with her Anglo-Irish background while “embracing this ‘criminal’ role of Irish patriot, [creating] the psychological compensation of constructing her authority along recognizable masculine lines.” ^[2] In other words, she directly addresses the male British aristocracy by using her feminism and Irish culture to make her political statement of unification.

Feminine linguistics may be explained with a look to the feminist philosophers of the twentieth century, Julia Kristeva and Helene Cixous, who have given the world of literature an insight into the complicated workings of the female psyche, each with her unique perspective of why and how women approach the linguistic design of text. According to Kristeva: 

Sexual difference – which is at once biological, physiological, and relative to production – is translated by and translates a difference in the relationship of subjects to the symbolic contract which is the social contract; a difference, then, in the relationship to power, language, and meaning. ^[3]

The social significance of the feminine power of language directly affects the readers’ perception of the speakers’ views. A writer reveals to the reading audience an interpretation of each character in relation to personal experience. A writer reveals to the reading audience an interpretation of each character in relation to personal experience. Therefore, in analysing writing, one must consider the psycholinguistic qualities that are intrinsic to the writer and audience, as images experienced through aural and visual sensory perceptions appearing by means of unique lexical styles.

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[1] R.F. Foster, Modern Ireland: 1600-1972, (New York: Viking Penguin, 1988), p. 161.

[2] Paula R. Feldman and Theresa M. Kelley, (ed), Romantic Women Writers: Voices and Counter voices (Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1995), p. 171.

[3] Kristeva, Julia, translated by Alice Jardine and Harry Blake, “Women’s Time.” Signs 7 (1981), p. 21.