Romantic without borders : tracing emotional intensity in Helen Maria Williams' 'Julia' (1790) and 'A tour in Switzerland' (1798)

Abstract

The work of Helen Maria Williams (1761-1827) was widely read by her contemporaries. However, compared to other writers of the same period, her texts have received less critical attention at the present time. She has essentially been regarded as an author of Sensibility in the last three decades of feminist scholarship. Her Letters written in France (1790) record political events and commentary on the French Revolution and have placed Williams in a tradition of radical politics. This dissertation interrogates two of Williams' works that have received scant critical attention: her only novel Julia (1790) and her travelogue Tour in Switzerland (1798). I am interested in identifying the fluctuations in the representation of intense emotions, which I contend is a characteristic of Helen Maria Williams' style. For this purpose, I have focused on Williams' use of the feminine voice, especially in Julia, the description of the perception of nature, and the representation of the experience of the Sublime.