Political Affairs of the Heart - 9781684484065

Political Affairs of the HeartFemale Travel Writers, the Sentimental Travelogue, and Revolution, 1775-1800\nAuthor(s): Linda Van Netten Blimke\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Bucknell University Press,U.S., United States\nImprint: Bucknell University Press,U.S.\nISBN-13: 9781684484065, 978-1684484065\nSynopsis\nRichly researched and engagingly written, Political Affairs of the Heart traces the emergence of female sentimental travel writing in late eighteenth-century Britain, and posits its centrality to women's engagement with national and gender politics. This study examines four travel narratives written by women between 1774 and 1795, convincingly arguing that they effectively deploy the discourse of sensibility to engage with debates around Britain's national identity during the French and American Revolutions. Van Netten Blimke contends that Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey [tel]which first introduced sentimental discourse to the traveloguefacilitated women's gradual inclus.