Discussion: Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)
Some background:  her father squandered all the family's money and this required them to move frequently.  She began her intellectual development, despite the limitations faced by women at the time, when she met a retired Reverend, Mr. Clare, while the family was living in Yorkshire.   They then moved close to London and she would attend lectures with a close friend, Fanny Blood.  
1777 - At 18, her family moved again, further away from London.  War of Independence in USA.
1778 - Paid companion to an elderly woman in Bath for 2 years.   Moved home temporarily and then moved in with Fanny and realized Fanny had embraced many of the traditional feminine traits, unlike Mary.  
1784 - Mary opens a school with her sisters and Fanny.  Met Dr Richard Price and other liberals.
1785 - Fanny marries and soon dies after childbirth.  Mary had to close the school and became a governess in Ireland.  Dismissed from her job after a year, in 178__ . 
1788 - published her 1st book.  Working for Joseph Johnson (The Analytical Review).
1792 moves to Paris just after the French revolution.  Meets Gilbert Imlay.
1794 - pregnant with Imlay's child.  
1795 - travelling in Scandinavia with her infant child.
1796 - becomes lovers with Godwin.  Married him in 1797 while pregnant with his child.  She dies soon after childbirth in 1797

(Note to self: Read the biographyof Wollstonecraft by Janet Todd)

At this time writers are emerging from the poorer strata of society, from middle-class families and later from the working class.  Rousseau and Wollstonecraft both came from middle-class families though their upbringings saw various challenges and difficulties.
Wollstonecraft was a child of the revolution - very interested in change
Wordsworth is also in France at this time.  Both of these people find it's not what they thought - messier, bloodier etc but they don't turn away from it.  Both respond to the French Revolution's excesses by trying to excuse them.

The rationalism of the enlightenment and the romance of the enlightenment.
Why do people placed in such a situation of conflict, turn to Romanticism?  Romanticism emerges directly from European revolutionary change and lasts about 20 years.
This juxtaposition makes Wollstonecraft politically incoherent (revolution and romanticism)

Wollstonecraft wrote Vindication in 1792 and her Letters 4 years later in 1796.  Her thougthts and demeanour are dramatically different: she has experienced revolution and its aftermath, she has had a child, love affairs and betrayal as well as likely some depressive episodes due to familial predisposition.

The Romantics:
2 Groups of English Romantics
1790-1810 - Wordsworth, Coleridge and Blake; Lake District
1800s - Byron, Shelley and Keats (ended with the accession to throne of Queen Victoria 1837)
German Romantics - Goethe,

Fournier  The Funeral of Shelley (Byron on right) - Wikipedia

Some Questions from Naomi, who couldn't be here tonight.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Mary Wollstonecraft)

1. Please watch this 5 minute video entitled “Mary Wollstonecraft, a Londoner”: http://youtu.be/Zg5H7y0waXU. 

At the end of the video the narrator makes the following statement:
“It shouldn’t need to be said but it’s worth saying again, that in the 21st century what Mary Wollstonecraft wished for, dreamed of, has still not come true: a world where women are the equals of men but also have the right to be different from men.”
Having now read the Vindication, how do you feel about this statement? Would Wollstonecraft have agreed with it in its entirety, or does it just perpetuate a false and unhelpful duality (or oversimplified complementarity - as Rousseau would have preferred) that women are supposed to be the “yin” to man’s “yang”? 

I think we are getting there in western society ('you've come a long way baby' but you've got a long way still to go) but there is still a large degree of inequality (not the same thing as difference).  I think progress is still being made though there is also some backsliding.

MW didn't want women to be denied anything.  Didn't like what women had become: petty, shallow, sometimes tyrannical.  She also was wary of "feminine" things such as maternal instinct etc  She was more interested in not confining women to narrow categories and to a narrow, limited place in society.

• Many passages in the Vindication are responses (or ‘animadversions’, as Wollstonecraft would call them) to ideas from Rousseau. We know that Rousseau took all his offspring to the foundling home despite having a constant companion and helpmate in their mother Thérèse. Mary Wollstonecraft had her first child out of wedlock and it’s clear from how she talked about (baby) Fanny in her Letters that she would never have dreamed of giving her up even though she eventually accepted that she was going to have to raise her on her own. Do the biographical details of an author’s life make a difference to how you receive his or her philosophical or political ideas? Should they? Does your answer to this question give you any insight into your own intellectual processes? (think: reason and passion) 

Knowing the details about MW's life makes it far more interesting reading about her thoughts and how she lived her life.  She had so many challenges to overcome and her thinking was so removed from the majority of women (and men) at that time. 

• The word “sensibility” appears many times in the Vindication. What does it mean (in this context), and is it a good thing or a bad thing? How does it relate to passion? 

Sensibility (noun) - ability to feel or appreciate the sublime   

- develop your sensibility: sensitivity, finer feelings, delicacy, taste,discrimination, discernment; understanding, insight, empathy,appreciation; feeling, intuition, responsiveness, receptiveness, perceptiveness, awareness.

- (sensibilities) the wording might offend their sensibilities: (finer) feelings,emotions, sensitivities, moral sense.
- - associated with the Romantics 

Virtue (noun)

1.  the simple virtue of farm life: goodness, virtuousness, righteousness, morality, integrity, dignity, rectitude, honor, decency, respectability, nobility, worthiness, purity; principles, ethics. ANTONYMS vice, iniquity.

2.   promptness was not one of his virtues: strong point, good point, good quality,asset, forte, attribute, strength, talent, feature. ANTONYMS failing.

3.  archaic she lost her virtue in the city. See virginity.

4.  I can see no virtue in this: merit, advantage, benefit, usefulness, strength,efficacy, plus, point. 

ANTONYMS disadvantage.

Perfectibility - a state of completeness and flawlessness

1. On page lxxi of the introduction Miriam Brody is discussing one of the ways of “reading” the Vindication in which she suggests: “Writing about rationality, Wollstonecraft repressed her own sensibility and desire, but these have risen to the surface of the text elliptically, accounting for its apparent disorganization, digressiveness, sporadic examples, apostrophes and outbursts.” Did you find the text disorganized, digressive, etc.? If you did not, how do you feel about this suggestion?
   
   Yes.  It was interesting that MW was more able to connect with the sublime in the Letters (4 years later)
   
   

Wollstonecraft believed that many of the undesirable characteristics that were perceived as naturally female were actually learned behaviours and therefore could be blamed on the wishes of the men for women to be that way in the first place. How do you assess that argument? Then? Now? 

I agree - many of the "UNDESIRABLE" qualities are learned behaviours.  It is very hard to know what might be innately female as we are still dealing with this (cultural modelling and stereotypical upbringing, marketing influences).  Society today (western society) is still affected by distinct gender roles and constraints, variations in how boys and girls are brought up, cultural messages etc. In non-western societies, women seem to be even more constrained by men's preferences and needs.

Mary Wollstonecraft
Letters written in Sweden, Norway & Denmark

Class Discussion Questions:

1.  Reason & Passion:

·       Twice in 1795, Mary has attempted suicide based on Imlay’s infidelities. 

·       Yet, only eleven years earlier, in 1784,  she was able to persuade and influence her sister, Eliza, to leave her abusive husband to be a single mother.   

·       In previous class lectures (and one of the questions from our first essay assignment), one meaning of passion was posited to be the centrality of suffering.  Does this situation apply to Mary? 

·       Or has Mary regressed against her own reason and/or passion when it is so personal?

In her letters Mary seemed to value and acknowledge both reason and passion.  I think she had the usual troubles most people have with making consistently good decisions.  We often put this down to being carried away by our passions and maybe this is true but Mary certainly was tormented by and suffered greatly for (to the point of attempting suicide twice) her passions.  She valued her passions though, and I don't think she would have wanted to have suffered less in exchange for a passionless life.

2.  Tradition & Customs:

P. 41 “The distribution of landed property into small farms, produces a degree of equality which I have seldom seen elsewhere; and the rich being all merchants, who are obliged to divide their personal fortune amongst their children, the boys always receiving twice as much as the girls, property has not a chance of accumulating till overgrown wealth destroys the balance of liberty.

· What does this say about our tradition and customs of our society?

· Is there still an inequality among families’ wealth distribution? 
Yes but probably less so

· Are Mary’s observations relevant to our society? 
Very much so

3.  Self & Society:  There is something about Mary

·       P. 102 – “As for women, they are simply notable housewife; without accomplishments or any of the charms that adorn more advanced social life…”.

·       P. 123 – “..the people were civil, with a certain honest hilarity and independent spirit in their manner, which almost made me forget that they were inn-keepers, a set of men, waiters, hostesses, chamber-maids, &c.  Down to the ostler, whose cunning servility, in England, I think particularily disgusting.”

·       In Mary’s letters most descriptions are constructive and reflective with nature.  Yet, her descriptions of people were not flattering.

·        She has created this tension in her writing.  Why is that?   Are these thoughts intended as opinionated comments or a reflective of the 18C?

Her romantic viewpoint contrasts and even conflicts with her enthusiasm for reason, progress.  This in turn is tempered by concerns about where some progress or innovations could lead.  She was very far-seeing in realizing where the clearing of the forested lands and expansion of human cultivation and society could lead to.

4.  Dependency

·        It seems that Mary was dependent on her friendships with Fanny Blood, Jane Arden,  Mr. & Mrs. Clare, her American lover Imlay, then husband William Godwin - in what ways might Mary be independent?

 She financially supports herself, is an independent thinker, but was overwhelmed by her passion for Imlay, also was involved with Fuselli.  Characterized by her biographer as being a strong-minded person used to getting her way.  She also created situations to make her sisters etc dependent on her.

4.  To Publish or not to Publish:

·       Mary’s letters were written for publication.  If you were to take the same journey for the same purpose as Mary did, would your letters be different or the same?

I would not have spoken so much (even though obliquely) about relationship issues and angst waiting for a lover to decide the fate of our relationship.


I very much enjoyed finding out more about Mary Wollstonecraft, reading two of her books (especially two such different books) and learning more about the time and women's issues at the time (albeit through the eyes of an amazingly independent woman - despite her passion for Imlay)