[In following essay, Sutherland analyzes three works by Astell in the context of Astell's education, as well as her contributions to the rhetorical tradition of the seventeenth century, noting her skills in argumentation and persuasion.]

Mary Astell has been celebrated as one of the earliest English feminists. Certainly in her own day she was well known and highly regarded. Yet, like many other women who made their mark upon their own times, she was almost completely forgotten after her death. George Ballard, it is true, published a short account of her life in Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain Who Have Been Celebrated for Their Writings or Skill in the Learned Languages, Arts and Sciences (1752), but thereafter little was written about her until this century, when first Florence Smith and then, much later, Ruth Perry brought her to the attention of feminist scholars.

In recent years, and especially since the publication of Ruth Perry's biography of her (1986), the importance of Mary Astell to the development of the struggle for women's education has been increasingly recognized; but from a rhetorician's point of view, the most interesting aspect of her work is her mastery of the art of eloquence, and her bold invasion of the masculine stronghold of traditional rhetoric. Both as a practitioner and as a defender of the ability of women to participate in rhetorical activities, Mary Astell may be said to have “reclaimed Rhetorica” in her own day. I begin this paper with a brief survey of Astell's life and works; this is necessary because she is still not as well known as she ought to be. I then argue her claim to be recognized as contributing to the rhetorical tradition.

Mary Astell was born in 1666 in Newcastle. The Astells were gentry: minor gentry, perhaps, but they were armigerous. Although a cousin of Mary Astell's owned an estate, the family based its fortunes not in the land but in the professions. Astell's ancestors were lawyers and preachers, even soldiers. Originally the family came to prominence as a result of military success in the Hundred Years War (Perry 29).

Astell's father was an official in the coal industry. If this suggests the contamination of trade, later so deplored by the English middle classes, we must bear in mind that the coal industry in Newcastle at this time was dignified by its association with an ancient medieval trade guild, the Hostmen, who were, to quote Ruth Perry, “the official hosts of feudal Newcastle” (29). The Astells were in no way representative of new money, often considered at the time to be “vulgar.” In their own way, they were part of a privileged class, with rights and traditions going far back into English history. Certainly they prided themselves on belonging to the gentry. Mary Astell's father and grandfather were firm supporters of the Stuarts, conservative in their political and religious affiliation, Anglicans in the tradition of Laud, and unafraid of the sympathy the later Stuart kings showed toward Roman Catholics.

Mary Astell, then, was brought up as a gentlewoman. She had one brother, Peter, whose education was assumed by their uncle, Ralph Astell, an Anglican priest at the church of St. Nicholas nearby. In spite of his alcoholic tendencies, Ralph Astell seems to have been an admirable man. It may have been from him that Astell derived her unusual degree of piety. Certainly she received much of her education from him, for Ralph Astell educated her along with her brother. Unfortunately, Ralph Astell died when Mary was only thirteen, and her formal education was cut short at this point. During his few years as her teacher, her uncle seems to have taught her not only to read and write but also, more unusually, to value the life of the mind and take an interest in the political, religious, and intellectual issues of the day.

Mary Astell's early years were probably happy. Her parents, though not particularly rich, were reasonably well-to-do, and she grew up with the advantage of a comfortable home. All this changed within a relatively short time. First, her father died. It then became apparent that his financial position was insecure. Newer interests were challenging the supremacy of the Hostmen, and Peter Astell did not leave his family well provided for. Any money that there was had to be set aside for the education of young Peter, Mary's brother. There was nothing left over to provide an adequate dowry for her. Soon after the death of her father, her formal education came to an end with the death of her uncle. She continued to live with her mother and her aunt—two other Mary Astells—until their deaths. But as time went by, and the financial position of the Astells did not improve, it became more and more apparent that the world had no place for young Mary. A young girl of her class was, of course, expected to marry—provided she had a dowry. Mary Astell had none. Some few dowerless girls might make a good marriage if they were exceptionally attractive; the evidence suggests that Mary Astell was not, though admittedly the only extant account of her appearance is derived from someone who did not know her when she was young. It comes from the granddaughter of her friend Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Lady Mary did not meet Astell until Astell herself was in middle age. She found her “rather ill-favoured and forbidding, and as far from ‘fair and elegant’ as any old schoolmaster of her time” (Perry 23). This description might, of course, refer rather to her typical manner and expression than to her features; nonetheless, it seems that even in girlhood Astell would not have been pretty enough to attract a husband in her dowerless condition, certainly not one from her own class. She might possibly have married beneath her, though it is clear that such a course would have been repugnant to her; and it is unlikely that any man below her own class would have wished to marry so dauntingly intelligent a woman as Mary Astell.

If she could not marry, what could she do? Had she not been a gentlewoman, she might have found some kind of menial work, however disagreeable; but her class precluded any such solution to her problem. Had she been a man, she could have turned her intelligence and her learning to good account. These, combined with her piety, would have made a career in the Church a real possibility. But this solution was not open to her because of her sex. It is true that during the Interregnum there had been numerous women preachers, but they had certainly not been Anglicans, and they had been firmly repressed by the Restoration government.

It is not surprising that for some time after the death of her mother, Mary Astell was in a state of extreme depression: the world seemed to have no use for her. The only advantages she had—her extraordinary intelligence and her capacity for strenuous intellectual activity—were ones that her society would not let her use.

Nevertheless, she decided to try. In 1688, she moved to London to seek her fortune in the emerging world of letters of the late seventeenth century. Predictably, she had no success. She appears to have counted on help from distant relations and friends of the family, but if they helped her at all, their assistance had dried up by the end of her first year. In desperation, she approached William Sancroft, archbishop of Canterbury, who was known for his generosity. She compares herself to the steward in the gospel: “Worke I cannot, and to beg I am ashamed” (Perry 66). It is characteristic of Astell's wit that she compares herself with the unjust steward: no doubt Sancroft appreciated the joke. Certainly he helped her. As an expression of gratitude, she sent him some of her own poems, stitched into a book. She describes it as “but of Goats' hair and Badger skins” (Perry 401) but explains that it is all that she has to give—another little theological joke, for it was of goats' hair and badgers' skins that the Holy Tabernacle of the Israelites was partly made.

Eventually, with the help of Sancroft, Mary Astell established herself: she was introduced to a bookseller, Rich Wilkin, who greatly admired her work and strenuously promoted it. She also found friends among the intellectual women of London—friends who were able not only to appreciate and encourage her but also to help her financially. Like many another writer, she found a patron, Lady Elizabeth Hastings. Among her other friends were Lady Catherine Jones, with whom she lived for some time, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

From the early 1690s until 1709, Mary Astell published a number of books and pamphlets, and became celebrated as a woman of eloquence and learning. She published no new works after 1709, though she revised some of her early works. Most of her time seems to have been spent promoting the education of girls—a cause very close to her heart. She was involved in the foundation of a charity school for girls in Chelsea, where she lived. For the last twenty years of her life, Mary Astell lived more privately. But it was a life of great usefulness and piety, and it seems she was happy among her circle of friends. Nevertheless, death, when it came, was not unwelcome to her. She contracted breast cancer, and the tumor eventually had to be removed—too late, as it turned out. She died less than two months later. She faced her end with great courage—even with eagerness. She had her coffin brought into her bedroom, and for the last two days refused food, drink, and company. She died on May 9, 1731.

What kind of person was Mary Astell? The answer must be: a very unusual person. There can be little doubt that she was in many ways a formidable personality, a woman who could, and did, daunt her acquaintances with her wit and honesty. But beneath this forthright manner, there was a deep concern for her friends, and a real commitment to what she saw as their prosperity. She did not hesitate to scold them when she thought it necessary, but she did so because she loved them. Her forthrightness and honesty were tempered by her good humor and her dry, understated wit. Above all, she was a pious woman. Her love for God was deep and genuine. Her life was founded upon it. Almost immediately after her death, Mary Astell was forgotten, except by her circle of friends. She had, of course, lived a private life for the last twenty years, and the novelty of her earlier works had worn off. Fortunately, when George Ballard was collecting materials for his book, some of her friends and acquaintances were still alive. But his fellow researchers had never heard of her, so quickly had she been forgotten.

Mary Astell's output was not large: six books, two pamphlets, and a record of her correspondence with John Norris of Bemerton on the subject of the love of God. I give here a list of her works in chronological order:

1694: A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of Their True and Greatest Interest. By a Lover of her Sex.

1695: Letters Concerning the Love of God, Between the Author of the Proposal to the Ladies and Mr. John Norris.

1697: A Serious Proposal to the Ladies Part II Wherein A Method Is Offer'd for the Improvement of their Minds.

1700: Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Occasion'd by the Duke and Duchess of Mazarine's Case; Which Is Also Consider'd.

1704: Moderation Truly Stated: Or, A Review of a Late Pamphlet Entitul'd Moderation a Vertue. With a Prefatory Discourse to Dr. D'Avenant, Concerning His Late Essays of Peace and War.

1704: A Fair Way with the Dissenters and Their Patrons. Not Writ by Mr. L———y, or Any Other Furious Jacobite Whether Clergyman or Layman; But by a Very Moderate Person and Dutiful Subject to the Queen.

1704: An Impartial Enquiry into the Causes of Rebellion and Civil War in this Kingdom: In an Examination of Dr. Kennett's Sermon Jan. 31, 1703/4. And Vindication of the Royal Martyr.

1705: The Christian Religion. As Profess'd by a Daughter of the Church of England.

1709: Bart'lemy Fair: Or, An Enquiry after Wit: In Which Due Respect is Had to a Letter Concerning Enthusiasm. To my Lord * * * By Mr. Wotton.

It would be possible to claim a place for Mary Astell in the history of rhetoric solely on the grounds of her magnificent practice of it. In her own day, she was renowned for her eloquence: John Evelyn refers to her writing as “sublime” (Perry 99); Lady Schomberg wishes that she had “but the least part of Mrs. Astell's eloquence” (487); John Norris speaks of her “moving Strains of the most natural and powerful Oratory” (79); John Dunton refers to her as “sublime” (487). As the passage from Norris indicates, those who had been trained in the rhetorical tradition—that is, the men—could recognize in her achievement an illustration of the principles with which they were familiar. A rhetorician studying her works cannot fail to be impressed by their fidelity to rhetorical principles. I propose to look at three of the more accessible of her works to demonstrate her mastery of the art of rhetoric.

A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694), her first book, was an immediate success, and it made her reputation. Further editions of the book appeared in 1695, 1696, 1697, and 1701. So rapidly did the fame of the book spread that when, in the year after its publication, she and John Norris published a volume of their correspondence, she was identified as the author of the Proposal (Letters Concerning the Love of God, Between the Author of the Proposal to the Ladies and Mr. John Norris).

The book is the fruit of her bitter experience when she first came to London, and of all her years of desperation when she was destitute, redundant, without work, without money, without friends. When with the help of Archbishop Sancroft Mary Astell emerged from this desolate time and began to find not only the means of subsistence but also an outlet for her gifts, she was determined, if she could, to do something for other women in the desperate position she had herself known. It was not only women in urgent need of employment with whom she was concerned: even more serious than the economic plight of some women was the moral and spiritual destitution of many more, particularly among the rich. As Astell began to move in relatively high society, she was deeply shocked by the superficiality of the lives of most women. Morally, they were as impoverished as she, until recently, had been materially. A Serious Proposal records her distress: she is horrified by the waste—of time, of intelligence, of talents given by God. Something had to be done. Her proposal is addressed to the ladies, but she has half an eye on the men too, and many of her arguments seem directed at them as much as at the women.

The proposal is to establish what she calls a “Protestant Nunnery” where women who could not, would not, or at least did not marry could take refuge in a life of holiness and service. Those who continued celibate could thus spend their lives usefully and happily, educating children and doing good among the poor. Life in a religious community would provide them with much-needed companionship, and help them in the attainment of the most important goal in this life—preparation for the life to come. Those who eventually did marry would have spent their time of waiting profitably, and would be prepared by their education for the nurture of their own children. Such an institution could do nothing but good, from every point of view.

But Mary Astell's proposal for a Protestant nunnery for women was not new. During the earlier part of the seventeenth century, this solution to the problem of unmarried women had been not only recommended but actually tried by Anglicans of her own—that is, the Laudian—persuasion. In the 1630s, Nicholas Ferrar had formed such a community of women for his mother, sisters, and nieces at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire. It had lasted thirty years. A similar community was organized by Lady Lettice, Viscountess of Falkland, at Great Tew, and another by Mary and Anne Kemys at Naish in Glamorganshire (Smith 64-70). Such communities always aroused suspicion in the authorities for political reasons: they were suspected of being in sympathy with the Roman Catholics. The attempt of the Spanish in 1588 to conquer England and reimpose the authority of the pope had not been forgotten. Nor had the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. For these and other reasons, the communities had not survived; but the idea was not new.

If her proposal to establish a community for women was not a new idea, why was it so well received? I believe we can attribute its success directly to its eloquence. Although it appears to be spontaneous, it is in fact a most carefully crafted work, as a little study of it will show. Her care and skill are apparent in her selection of arguments, her arrangement of them, and her style: to use rhetorical terminology, in her inventio, dispositio, and elocutio. In selecting her arguments, she is careful to take into consideration what will most probably appeal to the various interests represented among her readers: obviously she has made a study of her audience. She explicitly addresses the ladies. That is, she considers herself to be speaking to women of the upper classes. Such ladies at the time Astell was writing were notorious for their preoccupation with their appearance. She therefore begins by declaring that her only design is “to improve your Charms and heighten your Value.” Her aim is “to fix that Beauty, to make it lasting and permanent, which Nature with all the helps of Art cannot secure” (4). Astell is sure that a trained mind and an understanding heart are far more attractive than any mere physical attributes, and since the ladies in her audience are above all concerned with attracting favorable attention, she appeals to them on those grounds. But the frivolous ladies in high society are not the only ones who will read the proposal, even though it is to them that it is specifically addressed: Astell is astute enough to be aware that if her proposal is to receive support, it must interest the men too. They, after all, control most of the money. Her appeal must obviously be as wide as possible. She therefore takes into account not only ladies in high society but also prudent parents, pointing out that the cost of sending their unmarried daughters to such an institution is much lower than the dowry that would be required to find them acceptable husbands. On the other hand, for those whose daughters are so richly endowed as to attract inconvenient and unscrupulous suitors, she recommends the girls' temporary retirement to her academy, where they can be kept out of harm's way. For the intelligentsia, she uses cogent arguments based upon her understanding of faculty psychology: the soul, she says, “always Wills according as she understands, so that if she understands amiss, she Wills amiss” (64). Finally, to the public-spirited and the socially concerned, she shows the advantages of training competent teachers to promote the manners and morals of the upcoming generation. If the women marry, they will have been excellently prepared for their responsibilities as mothers; if they do not, they may function as salaried teachers and thus contribute usefully to the community as well as providing for themselves.

If Astell shows great skill in the selection of her arguments, she shows just as much in her arrangement of them. She does not actually make her proposal until about one-third of the way through. (We might compare this to Swift's similar postponement of his recommendation in A Modest Proposal.) The first fifty pages are devoted to preparing the ground—to outlining the problems and whetting her readers' appetites for a solution. She then makes her proposal with great clarity and brevity: it is “to erect a Monastery … or Religious Retirement, and such as shall have a double aspect, being not only a Retreat from the World for those who desire that advantage, but likewise an Institution and previous discipline to fit us to do the greatest good in it” (48). The ladies are to meditate, to attend worship services, to study, and to perform works of mercy. She elaborates to some degree, setting forth the requirements for tutors. On the whole, however, she gives very little detailed description of the curriculum or the timetable; she merely outlines the general principles, leaving the details to be worked out later by those chiefly concerned. The rest of the Proposal consists of a further analysis of the benefits to be derived from the institution (confirmatio) and answers to some of the objections that might be raised (refutatio, in its proper place according to the canons of traditional rhetoric). It is, in fact, a standard proposal, but one so smoothly put together that its effectiveness as persuasion is almost inevitable.

Added to the artistry of her selection of arguments and her arrangement of them is the eloquence of her style. In this work, we are most particularly aware of her speaking voice—the accents of persuasion. It is above all the rhythmic balance of her sentences that underlines the persuasiveness of her arguments. The reasonableness that she advocates is echoed in the measured balance of her clauses, the considered structure of her sentences, which suggest control without sacrificing liveliness. Hers is the voice of reason. By its very sound, it engenders trust. It is the Moderate style—not dull or sparse, but not richly decorated either, and making little use of startling metaphors or emotional exclamations. Its passions are well under the control of reason—and this too is persuasive.

Such was the success of A Serious Proposal that for a while it appeared that the institution it recommended might be endowed. Some great lady, possibly Lady Elizabeth Hastings but more probably Princess Anne, seriously considered contributing ten thousand pounds to its foundation. Ultimately, she was persuaded by Bishop Burnet to change her mind: he, like others in authority before him, was suspicious of anything that sounded so “Popish” (Perry 134). However, for some time, it looked as if the proposal might succeed.

It was possibly with a view to encouraging Princess Anne to proceed with her plans for endowment that Mary Astell dedicated Part 2 of A Serious Proposal (1697) to her. In the introduction to Part 2, Astell expresses her disappointment that, so far, no one had acted upon her suggestion. She says that she would be happier “to find her Project condemn'd as foolish and impertinent, than to find it receiv'd with some Approbation, and yet no body endeavouring to put it in Practice” (3). What can it be that hinders them? Is it “singularity”? “Are you afraid of being out of the ordinary way and therefore admir'd and gaz'd at?” (5). Or is it that the project seems too strenuous? “Is it the difficulty of attaining the Bravery of the Mind, the Labour and the Cost that keeps you from making a purchase of it?” (7). More probably, she decides, simple ignorance of study habits has discouraged women from attempting the life of the mind. They are afraid to embark upon something they so little understand. Their parents and guardians have “taught them perhaps to repeat their catechism and a few good sentences, to read a chapter and say their prayers, tho perhaps with as little understanding as a Parrot” (16). And for the parents, that was enough. What they chiefly lack is method. Admitting that in Part 1 she gave only a general outline, she offers now, in Part 2, to go into detail. She sees the instruction she is about to give as only a temporary measure, till the seminary can be erected. She hopes both to provide interim instruction and to whet her readers' appetites for more.

Apart from the introduction, which is a splendid example of the use of the exordium to establish ethos, particularly goodwill, Part 2 is not a work of persuasion but of instruction: Astell is supplying a method. In most respects, then, Part 2 is very different from Part 1. It is much longer: Part 1 has just under 150 pages, Part 2 nearly 300. Its arrangement is more formal: it is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 deals with the relationship between knowledge and virtue (something she referred to only briefly in Part 1). Chapter 2 discusses the preliminaries—the avoidance of sloth, selfishness, and pride, and the elimination of prejudices arising from authority, education, and custom. Chapter 3, by far the longest, gives directions for the improvement of the understanding; and Chapter 4 for the regulation of the will and the “government of the Passions.”

Astell's eloquence is as apparent in Part 2 as in Part 1. Once again, she shows her skill in understanding and accommodating her audience. As an example of this rhetorical wisdom, we may consider the title of the first chapter: “Of the Mutual Relation Between Ignorance and Vice, and Knowledge and Purity.” She is careful to begin her work with something that is sure to appeal to anyone serious-minded enough to take up her book. Most responsible people, both men and women, were far more concerned to promote women's morality than to encourage their education. And as Kathleen Jamieson has demonstrated, there was in the minds of the people of the time a direct, if to us illogical, connection between facility in speech and impurity of life (Jamieson 70). The chaste woman was thought to be identical to the silent woman: indeed, silence was said to be a woman's rhetoric (Maclean 54). As a writer herself, and as a promoter of other women's writing, Mary Astell shows herself well aware of the possible prejudices of her audience. She must refute their conviction that verbal facility leads to adultery. In fact, she does more: she reverses the argument, demonstrating that the training of the mind (which necessarily includes training in the arts of discourse) actually promotes morality. It does so by developing the understanding, which, according to seventeenth-century faculty psychology, should control the passions and direct the will. It therefore follows that, unless women have no rational souls, everything should be done to develop that rationality which alone can promote moral behavior.

As in Part 1, Astell's word choice and sentence structure serve her purpose. In Part 2, as we have noted, her primary purpose is to clarify, to teach, rather than to persuade her audience to adopt a particular course of action. In this work, it is above all the pace of the style that contributes to the work's force and clarity—this, and the superb control of the syntax. Here we particularly notice how she demonstrates relationships between ideas by the use of long sentences that hold those ideas in suspension. Doing so allows her to keep them in balance and to avoid overstatement. We sense that we are in the hands of an excellent navigator. She keeps the ship of her argument on course by constant adjustments, qualifications, and compensations. Here is one example:

God does nothing in vain, he gives no power or Faculty which he has not allotted to some proportionate use, if therefore he has given to Mankind a Rational Mind, every individual Understanding ought to be employ'd in somewhat worthy of it. The Meanest Person shou'd think as Justly, tho' not as Capaciously, as the greatest Philosopher. And if the Understanding be made for the contemplation of Truth, and I know not what else it can be made for, either there are many Understandings who are never able to attain what they were design'd for, which is contrary to the Supposition that GOD made nothing in Vain, or else the very meanest must be put in the way of attaining it.

(123)

If Part 1 of A Serious Proposal demonstrates Astell's powers of persuasion and Part 2 those of argumentation and explication, Some Reflections Upon Marriage reveals her skill in satire. In this work, Astell, though herself unmarried, speaks for the women of her time who were oppressed by a tyranny worse, because less escapable, than any political tyranny. She brings to bear upon her argument many of the current issues of her day, especially including contemporary discussions of the philosophy of government and of human nature. She successfully turns the opposition's own weapons against them, showing the logical implications of the arguments they use.

The occasion for this work was the death of the notorious Duchess of Mazarin, who had been a neighbor of Astell's in Chelsea. Married while still a young teenager to the fanatical, indeed insane, Duke of Meilleraye and Mayenne, and thereupon taking the name of her uncle the famous cardinal, the duchess had endured psychological and physical agonies before eventually escaping to England. There, living at the court of her friend Charles II, she had led a life typical of the decadence of the courtiers of the Restoration. What made her unusual was not her sexual immorality but her defiance of her husband and her escape from him. The story was old in 1700, when Astell wrote her book, but the scandal had been aired again when the duchess died in 1699. Astell immediately saw how she could take advantage of current interest in the affair to make a defense of and a plea for the abused women of her day. She sees the scandalous history of the duchess as one more demonstration of the absolute necessity of giving women a proper education. Devout Anglican that she is, she does not ask for improved divorce laws; but she does plead for a more sympathetic understanding of the married woman's plight and a recognition that marriage, far from being a necessary condition for a woman's happiness, is more likely than not a means of destroying it.

In this work Astell demonstrates with particular clarity the rhetorical astuteness of her argumentation. She takes advantage of the recent political situation—the Glorious Revolution of 1688, when James II was forced to abdicate—and the current interest in the rights of man, to plead the cause of women. Married women, she believes, are no better than slaves, though, she comments bitterly, they are “for the most part Wise enough to Love their Chains, and to discern how very becomingly they set” (Preface 23). Astell explicitly compares the condition of married women to that of “a poor People, who groan under Tyranny, unless they are Strong enough to break the Yoke, to Depose and abdicate” (27). In public matters, her readers were all for the liberty of the citizen. Not so in private matters: “Whatever may be said against a passive obedience in another case, I suppose there's no Man but likes it very well in this; how much soever Arbitrary Power may be disliked on a Throne, not Milton himself wou'd cry up Liberty to poor Female Slaves, or plead for the Lawfulness of Resisting a Private Tyranny” (27). Drawing again upon the language of politics, she continues: “He who would say the People were made for the Prince who is set over them would be thought to be out of his Senses as well as his Politics” (47).

Astell does not advocate revolt; instead, she recommends extreme caution. A woman should be educated to understand the risks involved in marriage, and to choose her “sovereign” rationally. At a time when all a woman's money became her husband's upon her marriage, she had to be particularly on her guard against the fortune hunter, lest she later be obliged to “make court to him for a little sorry alimony out of her own estate” (14). But a woman should equally beware of suitors who fall in love with her wit or beauty: “He who doats on a Face, he who makes Money his Idol, he who is charm'd with vain and empty Wit, gives no such Evidence, either of Wisdom or Goodness, that a Woman of any tolerable Sense wou'd care to venture her self to his Conduct” (31).

Some Reflections Upon Marriage not only demonstrates Astell's skill in argumentation, but also provides some of the best examples of her mastery of style. In her discussion of the dangers of courtship, she reverses the triumphant metaphors of conquest so often used in love poetry, taking the position of the pursued rather than the pursuer. Hers are metaphors not of conquest but of capture, and they are sinister, representing marriage as at best only a reluctant capitulation: “It were endless to reckon up the divers stratagems Men use to catch their Prey, their different ways of insinuating which vary with the Circumstances and the Ladies Temper. But how unfairly, how basely soever they proceed, when the Prey is once caught it passes for lawful Prize” (70). Astell's command of the satirical style embraces everything from straight invective to sarcasm to the most subtle and understated irony, from the coarse to the delicate. Surprisingly, she can at times approach the scatological, as when she refers to the tyrants' “Impiety and Immorality which dare … to devour Souls … leaving a stench behind them” (Preface 25). As an example of sheer invective, it is hard to match the following: A proud and peevish man has “Learning and Sense enough to make him a Fop in Perfection; for a Man can never be a complete Coxcomb, unless he has a considerable share of these to value himself upon” (28). Occasionally we find a little touch of sarcasm, as when she refers to “his great Wisdom so conspicuous on all occasions” (43), or to the “manly, mannerly” jests that men make not only against women but also against religion (50). But best of all are those passages of understated irony where, for example, she refers to men's “courage … in breaking through all the Tyes Sacred and Civil” in order to achieve success in the “great Actions and considerable Business of this World” (87); or where she praises them for their achievements: “All famous Arts have their Original from Men, even from the Invention of Guns to the Mystery of good Eating, and to shew that nothing is beneath their Care, any more than above their Reach, they have brought Gaming to an Art and Science, and a more Profitable and Honourable one too, than any that us'd to be call'd Liberal” (88).

Mary Astell, then, has some claim to be considered as belonging to the rhetorical tradition by virtue of her eloquence. In her selection of arguments, in her arrangement of them, in the stylistic choices she makes, she unerringly accommodates her audience and carries her point. Whether she was herself taught to write by her uncle, whether she taught herself by reading such books as L'art de penser and L'art de parler, or whether she simply internalized models of good writing, we do not know. Possibly there was a combination of all three.

But Mary Astell's right to be accorded a place in the history of rhetoric does not depend only upon her successful practice of it. Perhaps even more important than her eloquence is her insistence upon the ability and the right of women to participate in a rhetorical tradition from which they had hitherto normally been excluded by their ignorance of classical culture, particularly the Latin language. According to Father Walter Ong, Latin was “a sex-linked language written and spoken only by males, learned outside the home in a tribal setting which was in effect a male puberty rite setting, complete with physical punishment and other kinds of deliberately imposed hardships” (Ong 113). As long as rhetoric was based upon a working knowledge of Latin, which enabled a thorough grounding in classical history, philosophy, and literature, women were effectively excluded from it.

When Descartes not only called into question the usefulness of the whole apparatus of ancient and medieval learning but also used the vernacular as the language of scholarship, he unwittingly began a process that would enable women to participate in the intellectual life of their times. It was Poulain de la Barre who first saw the implications of this scholarly revolution for women (Perry 71). Mary Astell was undoubtedly familiar with his work, which was influential in England during the 1690s. As far as rhetoric is concerned, she was also influenced by the Port Royalists, and by the Oratorian Bernard Lamy, whose works she quotes in Part 2 of A Serious Proposal. Encouraged by these and other French thinkers, Astell follows up on the implications of these new ideas for women. “And since Truth is so near at hand, since we are not oblig'd to tumble over many Authors, to hunt after every celebrated Genius, but may have it for enquiring after in our own Breasts, are we not inexcusable if we don't obtain it?” (Serious Proposal Part 2, 122). Later in the same passage she specifically denies the importance of the learned languages in developing the powers of reasoning: “All have not leisure to Learn Languages and pore on Books, nor Opportunity to Converse with the Learned; but all may Think, may use their own Faculties rightly, and consult the Master who is within them” (124).

It is this principle of the naturalness of human reason and human speech that informs Mary Astell's rhetorical theory. Basing herself on the ideas of the scholars of Port Royal and the Oratory (themselves Cartesians), she is nonetheless original in the ways she applies her ideas to women. It is not enough to follow Descartes and the French rhetoricians in asserting that the ability to think and to write is natural; if she is to claim a place for women in logic and rhetoric, she must show that they are natural to women. At the time, this was by no means obvious to everybody. Astell argues this point in two ways. She asserts that women, as human beings, are of course endowed with reason; and she shows in detail how they can become fully competent as writers by using the knowledge they already have.

Astell's most sustained defense of women's rationality comes in the lengthy preface she added to the third edition of Some Reflections Upon Marriage (1706). An attack had been made upon this work, originally published in 1700, on the grounds of women's natural inferiority. This attack Astell refutes at length in the new preface. Much of her argument consists of the well-worn traditional citations by famous women, a standard defense that had been used for centuries. But some of it is more unusual. Her choice of the analogy of pig-keeping, for example, not only clarifies the point she is making but also adds some subtle innuendo: she claims that Woman was made primarily to serve God, not Man. “The Service she at any time becomes oblig'd to pay to a Man, is only a Business by the Bye. Just as it may be any Man's Business and Duty to keep Hogs; he was not made for this, but if he hires himself out to such an Employment, he ought conscientiously to perform it” (Preface 5). Still on the theme of domestic animals, she argues tellingly and bitterly that if indeed women have no powers of reason, they should, like these creatures, be kept restrained. It is neither fair nor wise to demand reasonable moral behavior from those who have no natural capacity for it (Preface 23). But she quickly dismisses this as nonsense. Associating reason with the power of speech, she points out that men have always complained that women speak too much rather than too little. It follows that one cannot seriously question the fact that they are endowed with reason. If their reasoning powers are in any way inferior to men's, that is because of a lack of exercise. The remedy is to provide the exercise and thus strengthen the faculty.

It is the exercise of the power of reason and of speech that Astell attempts to promote in Part 2 of A Serious Proposal. Although she never mentions Petrus Ramus, she is obviously working within a tradition influenced by him: She takes it for granted that thinking (including rhetorical inventio) belongs to logic rather than to rhetoric. Much of the sixty pages she devotes to a discussion of the method of thinking is heavily indebted, directly or indirectly, to Descartes. The Port Royalists who wrote L'art de penser, Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, were strongly influenced by Descartes. It is therefore not always easy to tell where Astell is influenced directly by Descartes, and where she is receiving his ideas mediated through Arnauld and Nicole. In her passage on logic, Astell quotes directly from Descartes's Principes de la philosophie:

That (to use the Words of a Celebrated Author) may be said to be “Clear which is present and Manifest to an attentive Mind; so as we say we see Objects Clearly, when being present to our Eyes they sufficiently Act on 'em, and our Eyes are dispos'd to regard 'em. And that Distinct, which is so Clear, Particular, and Different from all other things, that it contains not any thing in it self which appears not manifestly to him who considers it as he ought.”

(135)

A little later on, she gives six rules for clear thinking, which are obviously derived in part from the four rules put forward by Descartes in Discourse 2 of Discourse on Method (41). Here she acknowledges that she is drawing on the work of others, though she does not specify which. The rules are as follows:

1. We should in the first place Acquaint our selves thoroughly with the State of the Question, have a Distinct Notion of our Subject, whatever it be, and of the Termes we make use of, knowing precisely what it is we drive at: that so we may in the second

2. Cut off all needless Ideas and whatever has not a necessary Connexion to the matter under Consideration.

3. To conduct our Thought by Order, beginning with the most Simple and Easie Objects, and ascending as by Degrees to the Knowledge of the more Compos'd.

4. Not to leave any part of our Subject unexamin'd. … To this rule belongs that of Dividing the Subject of our Meditations into as many Parts as we can, and as shall be requisite to Understand it perfectly.

5. We must Always keep our Subject Directly in our Eye, and Closely pursue it through our Progress.

6. To judge no further than we Perceive, and not to take any thing for Truth which we do not evidently know to be so.

(143-49)

Like Arnauld and Nicole, Bernard Lamy, author of L'art de parler, was strongly influenced by Descartes. Here too, it is not easy to tell which ideas Astell derives immediately from Descartes and which from Descartes through Lamy. Her advice on the importance of attention is obviously Cartesian; according to Thomas M. Carr in Descartes and the Resilience of Rhetoric, attention is central to the Cartesian program (41). For Descartes, an important attention-getting device is admiration (in its seventeenth-century sense of wonder). The following passage in Astell is, then, obviously influenced by him: “Now attention is usually fixt by Admiration, which is excited by somewhat uncommon either in the Thought or way of Expression” (Serious Proposal Part 2, 194). Again, the importance she places upon clarity, exactness, and method in her advice on rhetoric is obviously to be attributed to the direct or indirect influence of Descartes: “Scarce anything conduces more to Clearness, the great Beauty of Writing, than Exactness of Method” (179). Strongest of all, however, is the Cartesian idea of the naturalness of thought and expression.

The question of the sources of Astell's rhetorical theory is complicated, and I have discussed it in more detail elsewhere (“Outside the Rhetorical Tradition”). What is most interesting about her theory is how she applies it directly to the situation of the women she addresses. She even challenges the rhetorical tradition itself, as I shall show later.

In Astell's view, women are fully competent to engage in rhetorical activity, with one exception: public speaking. She gives no reason for thus excluding women from such an important part of rhetoric—she merely assumes that it is inappropriate for them. But apart from this exception, she believes that women can and should participate fully. Traditionally, if women wrote at all, they usually confined themselves to producing handbooks of devotion or composing elegant letters to their friends. They also wrote fiction, plays, and poems—Aphra Behn is a case in point. But in Astell's time some few women were beginning to join in political and philosophical debate; she did so herself, as did her opponent Damaris Masham. Astell strongly defended women's ability thus to engage in intellectual discussion at the highest level. Guided to the same degree by the natural light of reason, women were fully competent to join men in the pamphleteering that was such a feature of the day.

Astell begins her discussion of rhetoric by asserting once again the naturalness of intellectual activity, whether in thinking or writing: “As Nature teaches us logic, so does it instruct us in Rhetoric much better than Rules of Art, which if they are good ones are nothing else but those Judicious Observations which Men of Sense have drawn from Nature, and which all who reflect on the Operations of their own Minds will find out 'emselves. The common Precepts of Rhetoric may teach us how to reduce Ingenious ways of speaking to a certain Rule, but they do not teach us how to Invent them, this is Nature's work and she does it best” (175).

She then goes into detail, covering in turn each of the parts of rhetoric except invention—which she has already discussed in her passage on logic—and memory. Again and again she shows that women have nothing to fear, that they already know all they need to know, and that all they have to do is recognize that they know it and put it into practice: “The Method of Thinking has been already shewn, and the same is to be observed in Writing, which if it be what it ought, is nothing else but the communicating to others the result of our frequent and deep Meditations, in such a manner as we judge most effectual to convince them of those Truths which we believe, Always remembering that the most natural Order is ever the best” (180).

As with arrangement, so with style: the guiding principle is to follow Nature:

In short, as Thinking conformably to the Nature of Things is True Knowledge, so th'expressing our Thoughts in such a way, as most readily, and with the greatest Clearness and Life, excites in others the very same idea that was in us, is the best Eloquence. For if our Idea be conformable to the Nature of the thing it represents, and its Relations duly stated, this is the most effectual Way both to Inform and Persuade. … If therefore we thoroughly understand our Subject and are Zealously affected with it, we shall neither want suitable words to explain, nor persuasive Methods to recommend it.

(188)

In matters of grammar and spelling the same principle holds. Spelling is not the mystery to women that it is commonly proclaimed to be. The trouble is that women have been told that correct spelling is both difficult and unladylike: “As to spelling, which they're said to be defective in, if they don't believe as they're usually told, that its fit for 'em to be so, and that to write exactly is too Pedantic, they may soon correct that fault, by Pronouncing their words aright and Spelling 'em accordingly.” True, phonetic spelling will not always answer, because of “an Imperfection in our Language,” but “in this case a little Observation or recourse to Books will assist us; and if at any time we happen to mistake by Spelling as we Pronounce, the fault will be very Venial, and Custom rather to blame than we” (193). Astell obviously thinks the fuss made about women's spelling is disproportionate. The same goes for grammar. Once again, Astell denies that women are as deficient in it as they are reputed to be—and comments that they are not the only transgressors. A little extra care will solve this problem: women should avoid hastiness and take the trouble to proofread. The only guide they need is their natural good sense of language: “Those who speak true grammar, unless they're very careless cannot write false, since they need only peruse what they've writ and consider whether they wou'd express themselves thus in Conversation” (194).

Astell not only answers men's objections, and women's fears, that writing according to a masculine standard is beyond them; she also asserts that in some ways women are not men's equals but their superiors in rhetoric. They have certain natural advantages. She declines to give any advice about delivery (which she calls “Pronunciation”) on the grounds that it is unnecessary: women will not engage in public speaking, and “Nature does for the most part furnish 'em with such a Musical Tone, Perswasive Air and Winning Address as renders their Discourse sufficiently agreeable in Private Conversation” (192). The art of conversation—which she believes comes naturally to women—is extremely important in Astell's theory of rhetoric. Not only is it a sure guide in matters of correctness, but it is also essential in the formation of a good writing style: “I have made no distinction in what has been said between Speaking and Writing, because tho they are talents which do not always meet, yet there is no material difference between 'em. They Write best perhaps who do't with the gentile and easy air of Conversation; and they Talk best who mingle Solidity of Thought with th'agreeableness of a ready Wit” (192). This is, as we know, the position of Quintilian and Cicero. There is no direct evidence that Astell was familiar with the work of either, but their ideas had of course passed into the rhetorical tradition. There is no suggestion that Astell considers the art of conversation at all inferior to the art of public speaking. It is not second-best eloquence, something with which women may comfort themselves for being denied the glories of the public platform. Not only in her theory but also in her experience, conversation was of the first importance: it was the foundation of those friendships with other women that provided the basic satisfactions of her life.

Another advantage possessed by women, according to Astell, is a good ethos. Like Augustine, Astell considers ethos of the highest importance. The lack of it will surely undermine the best-informed discourse. It is, she says, “to little purpose to Think well and speak well, unless we live well” (201). The advantage that women enjoy in this respect is implied in the rather sour comment she makes in discussing the teaching of children: The education of the young, “at least the foundation of it, on which in a great measure the success of all depends, shou'd be laid by the Mother, for Fathers find other Business, they will not be confin'd to such laborious work, they have not such opportunities for observing a Child's Temper, nor are the greatest part of 'em like to do much good, since Precepts contradicted by Example seldom prove effectual” (210).

The high value that Astell thus places upon moral considerations is typical of her rhetorical theory throughout. If Nature is one sure guide for women attempting to learn the arts of discourse, Christian morality is the other. “The way to be good Orators is to be good Christians” (189), she tells her audience of women—useful advice, for whatever the deficiencies of their education, they are unlikely to be entirely ignorant about morality. All they have to do is apply Christian principles to the practice of communication. Again, she is making the point that they already know how to proceed. They have nothing to fear.

Like the Cartesian principle of the sufficiency of natural gifts to develop and direct the arts of discourse, this belief in the efficacy of Christian precepts to produce good writing is derived from Astell's French sources. But she goes beyond her sources in extending such principles to include the discourse of women. She challenges women's exclusion from the rhetorical tradition, and thus contributes to that tradition.

But Astell's contribution to rhetoric does not end here, for she attempts, on behalf of women, not only to join the rhetorical tradition but also to question it. Throughout the history of rhetoric there has been a recurrent tendency to think of it in terms of a metaphor of warfare: the opposition (and in practice, this frequently means the audience) is the enemy, who is to be vanquished. No doubt the very strong forensic element in classical rhetoric, particularly in Roman times, contributed largely to this tendency; but it did not end with the Romans. It is this tradition of confrontation that Astell finds repugnant; it is this she disallows in women's practice of the arts of discourse:

To be able to hold an argument Right or Wrong may pass with some perhaps for the Character of a Good Disputant, which yet I think it is not, but must by no means be allow'd to be that of a Rational Person. … For indeed Truth not Victory is what we should contend for in all Disputes, it being more glorious to be Overcome by her than to Triumph under the Banner of Error. And therefore we pervert Reason when we make it the Instrument of an Endless Contention.

(Serious Proposal Part 2, 162)

CONNECTIONS WITH MODERN FEMINISM

It is in her strong objection to the patriarchal tendency to reduce all discussions to a win/lose conflict that Mary Astell is at her most feminine. Recent research has shown that feminine epistemology is often distinguished from masculine by a distaste for confrontation, and by a concern for the protection of both sides against needless humiliation:

In general, few of the women we interviewed … found argument … a congenial form of conversation among friends. The classic dormitory bull session with students assailing their opponents' logic and attacking their evidence, seems to occur rarely among women. … Women find it hard to see doubting as a game; they tend to take it personally. Teachers and fathers and boyfriends assure them that arguments are not between persons but between positions, but the women continue to fear that someone may get hurt.

(Belenky 105)

This quality of caring, identified by Nel Noddings as typical of women's approach to ethics, is seen by Belenky and her colleagues as informing their ways of knowing generally: “We posit two contrasting epistemological orientations: a separate epistemology, based upon impersonal procedures for establishing truth, and a connected epistemology in which truth emerges through care” (102).

The principle of caring is observable throughout Astell's discussion of rhetoric. It is, in fact, one of its most important distinguishing features. In particular, it helps to differentiate Astell's particular contribution from that of her most important source, Bernard Lamy. Her use of Christian morality as a guide to the practice of rhetoric is especially well suited to her audience of women, but it is not original. Most of the Christian principles she identifies as helpful guides to rhetorical practice had already been suggested by Lamy. But there is often a great difference in tone and emphasis between Astell and Lamy, and more often than not it has to do with the principle of caring. For example, in his discussion of goodwill in ethos, Lamy allows that it may be genuine, yet seems far from convinced that it usually is: “One may put on the face of an Honest man, only to delude those who have a reverence for the least appearance of truth; yet it follows not but we may profess love to our Auditors, and insinuate into their affections, when our love is sincere, and we have no design but the interest and propagation of truth” (359). Astell's version of the same point transforms it: “By being True Christians we have Really that Love for others which all who desire to perswade must pretend to” (Serious Proposal Part 2, 190). Similarly, both Lamy and Astell recommend the avoidance of pride, but their reasons for such a recommendation are different, and demonstrate somewhat different moral priorities. Lamy's counsel is based upon his own experience as the humiliated loser in verbal warfare. “Many times our obstinacy and aversion to the truth, is caused only by the fierceness and arrogance wherewith an Orator would force from our own mouths an acknowledgement of our Ignorance” (354). Astell's concern, on the other hand, is with others rather than with herself; whereas he looks inward, she looks outward in compassion: “I believe we shall find, there's nothing more improper than Pride and Positiveness, nor any thing more prevalent than an innocent compliance with weakness: Such as pretends not to dictate to their Ignorance, but only to explain and illustrate what lay hid or might have been known before if they had consider'd it, and supposes that their Minds being employ'd about some other things was the reason why they did not discern it as well as we” (185). In another passage, she takes up Lamy's point again, and specifically warns against taking a confrontational position: “And since many would yield to the Clear Light of Truth were't not for the shame of being overcome, we shou'd Convince but not Triumph, and rather Conceal our Conquest than Publish it. We doubly oblige our Neighbours when we reduce them into the Right Way, and keep in from being taken notice of that they were once in the Wrong” (186).

It might be objected that in attributing so much importance to the genuine concern of the speaker for the audience, the writer for the readers, Astell is merely following Augustine. Indeed, I have argued elsewhere that Augustine's fundamental rhetorical principle is love (Sutherland, “Love as Rhetorical Principle” 139-55). Certainly Astell's French sources in Port Royal and the Oratory were strongly Augustinian, though as we have seen, Lamy appears to be less interested in this particular aspect of the relationship between morals and rhetoric than Astell herself. But without denying that she may indeed have been influenced, directly or indirectly, by the rhetoric of Augustine, I think his conception of what love of the audience means differs in practice from hers. When Augustine speaks of the benefit of the audience, what he has in mind is their reception of the gospel. This is the great good which the Christian orator must bear in mind at all times. It is this that must inform his rhetorical practice from beginning to end. Astell's precept is more lowly. Of course she thinks it is important that people be good Christians—she says so repeatedly. But what she specifically recommends is tenderness towards the feelings of the audience. However misguided her opponents may be, she wants to spare them the pain of humiliation. I do not recall that Augustine's principle of love reaches down quite so far.

There are solid grounds, then, for claiming Mary Astell as a contributor to the rhetorical tradition: as a practitioner of rhetoric, she exemplifies the art of writing at its best; and as a theorist, she introduces the feminine element into what had hitherto been a masculine preserve. Both in her accommodation of Cartesian principles of naturalness to women's thinking and writing, and in her insistence upon genuine caring as a necessary element in effective persuasion, Astell makes her mark upon rhetorical history. It is time for us all to read what she has inscribed there.

References

Arnauld, Antoine. The Art of Thinking. 1662. Trans. James Dickoff. Repr. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964.

Astell, Mary. A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of Their True and Greatest Interest by a Lover of Her Sex. London, 1694.

———. A Serious Proposal to the Ladies Part II Wherein a Method's Offer'd for the Improvement of Their Minds. London, 1697.

———. Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Occasion'd by the Duke and Duchess of Mazarine's Case, Which is Also Consider'd. London, 1700.

Ballard, George. Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain Who Have Been Celebrated For Their Writings or Skill in the Learned Languages. Oxford, 1752.

Belenky, Mary Field, Blythe McVicker Clinchy, Nancy Rule Goldberger, and Jill Mattuck Tarule. Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind. New York: Basic, 1986.

Carr, Thomas M. Jr. Descartes and the Resilience of Rhetoric. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1990.

Descartes, Rene. Discourse on Method and the Meditations. Trans. F. E. Sutcliffe. London: Penguin, 1968.

———. Principes de la philosophie. Trans. Rodger Miller and Reese P. Miller. Boston: D. Reidel, 1983.

Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. Eloquence in an Electronic Age: The Transformation of Political Speechmaking. New York: Oxford UP, 1988.

Lamy, Bernard. The Art of Speaking. 1676. Repr. in The Rhetorics of Thomas Hobbes and Bernard Lamy. Ed. John T. Harwood. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1986. 167-377.

MacLean, Ian. The Renaissance Nation of Women. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1980.

Noddings, Nel. Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. Berkeley: U of California P, 1984.

Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Methuen, 1982.

Perry, Ruth. The Celebrated Mary Astell: An Early English Feminist. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1986.

Smith, Florence. Mary Astell. 1916. Repr. New York: AMS, 1966.

Sutherland, Christine Mason. “Love as Rhetorical Principle: The Relationship Between Content and Style in the Rhetoric of St. Augustine.” Grace, Politics and Desire. Ed. Hugo A. Meynell. Calgary: U of Calgary P, 1990. 139-54.

———. “Outside the Rhetorical Tradition: Mary Astell's Advice to Women in Seventeenth Century England.” Rhetorica 9.2 (spring 1991): 147-63.