The Eloquence of Mary Astell by Christine Mason Sutherland (review)

78 points in the Introduction he misrepresents the novel’s plot: first, Mr. Hinnant tells us that Cornelia is beaten after exceeding her household allowance, when she is actually punished for stealing from the tobacco shop; and second, he writes that Cornelia opens a shop in Flanders when, in fact, she goes to Flanders to purchase merchandise, but returns to open a shop in ‘‘my House’’ which is in ‘‘the City’’ or ‘‘the Town’’ of London. Undergraduates will find the book’s elementary footnotes and appendices of primary source material (excerpts from Don Quixote, The English Rogue, The Whore’s Rhetorick, and contemporary conduct literature) useful. Katharine Kittredge Ithaca College CHRISTINE MASON SUTHERLAND. The Eloquence of Mary Astell. Calgary: Calgary , 2005. Pp. xi ⫹ 202. $44.95. Astell’s unique brand of rhetorical expertise and her unusual ethos were established by navigating seventeenthcentury channels fraught with the dangers and rewards of power, prejudice, and persuasion. Astell is not typically defined as a rhetorical theorist, her own interpretive framework being directly informed by Cartesian philosophy and conservative Christianity. Ms. Sutherland ’s careful analysis, however, emphasizes the rhetorical features of Astell’s multifaceted works, particularly her advice for her readers in Chapter Three of A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Part II, which, she plausibly argues, itself constitutes a theory of rhetoric. Ms. Sutherland evenhandedly approaches the prejudices Astell had to address , carefully revealing the different degrees and types of sexism at play. Erasmus, for example, defended education for women because he felt it ‘‘prepared them for marriage’’; Juan Luis Vives and Sir Thomas More also did so, but did not feel women should enter the public sphere. Aristotle’s three characteristics of an effective ethos (‘‘intelligence , integrity, and goodwill’’) were carried over into the Renaissance, but could not, therefore, have helped her. Astell’s audience would have denigrated her intelligence because she was a woman , and her integrity and goodwill because , by publishing, she participated in the public sphere. Yet Ms. Sutherland points out the encouragement Queen Elizabeth’s example must have lent, although it required compromise. Ms. Sutherland highlights the philosophical and religious underpinnings of Astell’s thinking. Although Astell did not want women to speak publicly, she believed that they should do their ‘‘best to contribute to the public good.’’ She assigned this virtue to the Christian woman, defining a woman’s duty to serve man as subordinate to her duty to God. Her scripturally based arguments for spiritual equality were strengthened by her Christian Platonism. Astell was enriched through her correspondence with John Norris that resulted in Letters Concerning the Love of God (1695). Her defense of her views helped ground her ethos in the Cartesian mind-body split, allowing her to avoid some prejudices and create a theological justification for her actions. She began A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694, 1697) even before Norris pressured her to allow him to publish Letters. Her success with Norris must have buoyed her argument that all women should be educated , although the monastery Astell describes in Serious Proposal was most likely unpalatable to her audience of largely poorly read, upper-class women. 79 Ms. Sutherland shows that Astell was not writing simply to respond to Locke, but for a female audience, which explains her simplified tone and diction. Her ethos thus compassionately communicated to her audience, winning them over to the idea of change without appearing to criticize them. Though Locke may have been a peripheral audience , he was not a central one until The Christian Religion (1705). It is in her ‘‘magnum opus,’’ The Christian Religion, that Astell confronts Locke’s materialism and explores their theological differences. Ms. Sutherland shows a deep familiarity with all of Astell ’s works, even her political pamphlets , which are important because she was respected for joining a discussion usually left to men. Ms. Sutherland also brings out the contemporary relevance of the debates. From the book’s title, I expected to hear a great deal concerning Cicero. After all, not only was Astell an eloquent rhetorician herself, but she used his example of the letter genre as treatise, so the use of ‘‘eloquence’’ in Ms. Sutherland ’s title does double duty. Although Astell...