L’Illuminismo delle emozioni. Etica e politica della comunicazione nel «Nonsense of Common-sense» (1737-1738) di Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

The Enlightenment of emotions: Ethics and politics of communication in “Nonsense of Common-sense” (1737-1738) by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

The «Nonsense of Common-sense» (1737-1738) is the first journal edited in English by a woman. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), writer in the Georgian Era, supporter of the Court Party like Lord Hervey and of the first representative government (led by Robert Walpole), was opposed to the Country Party, its leader Lord Bolingbroke and its fellows Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, George Berkeley. She fought for a modern society consisting of free, educated, satisfied persons versus every ethics and ‘politics of nostalgia’. She wrote expressly or implicitly on politics and ethics, economy and national debt, mortgage rates, balance of trade, foreign affairs, morality and sexual ethics, women’s rights, smallpox and inoculation, press freedom, relationship between common sense, reason and sentiment. She pointed her remarks with enlightened spirit, but also with literary skills, empathy and strong attention to the audience and its handling. So, from the starting period of the early modern era and democracy, we find issues that question our today.

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