 Title page from the 1800 New York edition | |
| Author | Richard Polwhele |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | William Cobbett (orig. pub. Cadell and Davies) |
Publication date | 1798; rpt. 1800 |
| Publication place | Britain |
The Unsex'd Females, a Poem (1798), by Richard Polwhele, is a polemical intervention into the public debates over the role of women at the end of the 18th century. The poem is primarily concerned with what Polwhele characterizes as the encroachment of radical French political and philosophical ideas into British society, particularly those associated with the Enlightenment. These subjects come together, for Polwhele, in the revolutionary figure of Mary Wollstonecraft.
The poem is of interest to those interested in the history of women, as well as revolutionary politics, and is an example of the British backlash against the ideals of the French Revolution; it is representative of the strategic conflation of women writers with revolutionary ideals during this period;[1] and it helps illuminate the obstacles faced by women writers at the end of the 18th century.
- ^ Sharon M. Setzer, Introduction, A Letter to the Women of England and the Natural Daughter, Mary Robinson, Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2003