Enjoy a cup of tea!
From pp. 128-130 of my book on the Rhetoric of Sydney Owenson (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 feminine and Irish culture
to make her political statement of unification.
Feminine linguistics may be explained with a look to 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. 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.
[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.
