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On a Lady's Writing


Diderot Ecrire 3 Marchand

The training of the hand reinforced social relations through specific physical practices. A lady was expected to comport her body with a certain correct carriage; Barbauld recognized its counterpart in the physical act of writing. But these very postures are a product of the body politic. In the sort of prescription of how the body should be disciplined, Barbauld seems well aware of the accompanying political implications of penmanship and what that gendered term suggests about women's place in her culture.

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