Abstract
British author and political activist Helen Maria Williams (1759-1827) dedicated the greatest part of her career to describe and analyse the French Revolution and the consequences of its aftermath. She is known for her Letters written in France (1790), an eyewitness account of her first visit to France. At the beginning of her career, Williams was praised in Britain for her sensibility poems. However, when she moved to France, and especially after the publication of A Tour Switzerland (1798), she shows her commitment to the ideas of the French Revolution while presenting her writing a source for accurate political and historical information. For this aim, she employs a series of strategies that situate herself in the position of an informed intellectual. This article focuses on A Tour in Switzerland, a work that has received less critical attention than Letters but deserves reconsideration.
Highlights
On March 1798, the French army occupied Switzerland marking the end of the Old Swiss Confederacy and the beginning of the new Helvetic Republic
The outcome is eclectic since it combines political analysis and journalism with travel anecdotes and a romantic description of alpine landscapes
In the chapters devoted to political analysis, Williams displays a method of gathering, interpreting and presenting information that situates her in a position of authorial control
Summary
Several studies on Williams have studied her role as a sensibility writer, paying attention mainly to her literary style, while other scholars have focused on her biographical aspects and connections This is the case of the only monograph dedicated to Williams, Helen Maria Williams and the Age of Revolution (2002), written by Deborah Kennedy. In her book published in 2013, entitled Revolutionary Women Writers, Charlotte Smith & Helen Maria Williams, Angela Keane dedicates one chapter to A Tour in Switzerland. This short chapter contains an overview of the whole two volumes, and it discusses its main themes -sublime experience, politics, exile...- without pausing to offer a more detailed analysis of its intellectual elements. I interrogate how Williams’ gender shaped the reception of A Tour in Switzerland at the moment of its publication
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