ABSTRACT
Author of important feminist and cultural-materialist books on lateeighteenth-century and nineteenth-century culture, Mary Poovey here turns her attention to the problem of why Wollstonecraft's Maria is both fragmentary and internally conflicted. Poovey argues that the very structure of sentimentalism was bound to create ambi valences for Wollstonecraft, since it both served to arouse female desire, and to lead women to the single institution within which it was legitimate but which also sought to control and sublimate it. Wollstonecraft turned her hand to writing novels for generic reasons: political theory - a genre in which Wollstonecraft felt at ease - was insufficiently associated with the realm of feeling, and its public nature made it seem an improper enterprise for a woman. Wollstonecraft is aware of the feminist potential of criticizing senti mental norms, but is also unable to escape their allure.
