I've been fascinated by Mary Wollstonecraft ever since I saw a Fringe play years ago about her and, for the 1st time, heard that there were women as far back as the 1700s who thought and wrote about women's rights. It was also interesting at the time to learn she was Mary Shelley's mother and to learn a bit about Mary Shelley. So I was very excited to see that we would be reading two of Wollstonecraft's books this term, especially since one of them was the text that originally piqued my interest, her Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
Wollstonecraft had a difficult upbringing for her father was an abusive alcoholic. She had various stints as a governess or companion before a brief period running a school. She then began to write for the Analytical Review, and also published a few books. She travelled to France around the time of the French Revolution. In Travels, Wollstonecraft is travelling through Scandinavia with her 10-month old daughter, Fanny, and a nursemaid, Marguerite. She is on a commission from her American lover, Gilbert Imlay, who has had a ship, full of French silver, go missing. Imlay is a businessman and looking to make money out of the French Revolution. He is unfaithful to Wollstonecraft which was recently the cause of the 1st of 2 suicide attempts by Wollstonecraft.
pg 6 "men with common minds seldom break through general rules."
She comments on how their hard lives make it difficult for poor people/rural people to foster the imagination that will give them a glimpse of other possibilities. pg 7
Wollstonecraft speaks quite lyrically and passionately about the landscape
- très 18th c. Romantic!
- très 18th c. Romantic!
pg 10 "I gazed around with rapture, and felt more of that spontaneous pleasure which gives credibility to our expectation of happiness, than I had for a long, long time before. I forgot the horrors I had witnessed in France, which hath cast a gloom over all nature, and suffering the enthusiasm of my character, too often, gracious God! damped by tears of disappointed affection, to be lighted up afresh, care took wing while simple fellow feeling expanded my heart."
"for the sublime often gave place imperceptibly to the beautiful."
pg 14 "without the aid of the imagination all the pleasures of the senses must sink into grossness, unless continual novelty serve as a substitute for the imagination[...]"
This is even truer today where people have a great desire for novelty as unprecedented means to satisfy this need but imagination is taking a hit.
pg 14 "Yet who will deny that the imagination and understanding have made many, very many discoveries since those days [days of Solomon], which seem only harbingers of others still more noble and beneficial. I never met with much imagination amongst people who had not acquired a habit of reflection[...]"
At night, Wollstonecraft reflects on how everything is resting, agitated breasts are calmed and "wordly cares melt into the airy stuff that dreams are made of" pg 16
"Eternity is in these moments."
She observes class inequalities (most marked between servant and master and the most downtrodden of all being women servants.)
pg 21 "And in the country, growing intimate with nature, a thousand little circumstances, unseen by vulgar eyes, give birth to sentiments dear to the imagination, and inquiries which expand the soul, particularly when cultivation has not smoothed into insipidity all its originality of character."
pg 23 Extended commentary on: voluptuousness, morals, chastity, English, American, Swedish country girls
She writes about a "total want of chastity" - what does she mean? She herself has several affairs, one with a married artist and the current one leading to her illegitimate daughter Fanny
pg 34 "confounding the morals of the day with the few grand principles on which unchangeable morality rests."
She writes about the end of the day/early evening (which is night in the northern summer), the light, soft blue and "that tender melancholy which, sublimating the imagination, exalts, rather than depresses the mind."
On pg 34 she writes about being overcome by nature overnight as her companions slept and uses a nautical metaphor on pg 35 to describe the pitfalls of life "the help of experience is not often at hand, to enable strange vessels to steer clear of the rocks, which lurk below the water, close to shore."
She is travelling to try and do a service for Gilbert Imlay, the American businessman she fell in love with in Paris just after the French revolution. He hasn't been faithful and just a few months earlier Wollstonecraft tried to commit suicide. Their relationship is very precarious (she will arrive home from this trip and find him living with someone else).
pg 36 "had not my spirits been harassed by various causes - by much thinking - musing almost to madness - even by a sort of weak melancholy that hung about my heart at parting with my daughter for the first time."
Wollstonecraft is travelling with her infant daughter. She writes about watching her sleeping daughter and being so afraid for what her life will be knowing what she knows about the limited options for women and the dangers and trials they will face in life.
On pg 36, she writes about her fears for her daughter "the dependent and oppressed state of her sex."
On pg 39 - Wollstonecraft writes about the scenery which leaves "images in the memory which the imagination will ever hold dear"
"Nature is the nurse of sentiment, - the true source of taste; - yet what misery, as well as rapture, is produced by a quick perception of the beautiful and sublime, when it is exercised in observing animated nature, when every beauteous feeling and emotion excites responsive sympathy, and the harmonized soul sinks into melancholy, or rises to extasy [sic]..."
"But how dangerous is it to foster these sentiments in such an imperfect state of existence; and how difficult to eradicate them when an affection for mankind, a passion for an individual, is but the unfolding of that love which embraces all that is great and beautiful."
She likes Norway and the Norwegians, finding them the least oppressed, most free people but she is a bit scathing on their culture. When writing about the many seaports (pg 42), Wollstonecraft notes "The [ship] captains acquire a little superficial knowledge by travelling, which their indefatigable attention to the making of money prevents their digesting[...]"
"politics [...] enlarges the heart by opening the understanding"
"The grand virtues of the heart, particularly the enlarged humanity which extends to the whole human race, depend more on the understanding, I believe, than is generally imagined." Footnote pg 42
pg 43 "a desperate act is not always proof of an incorrigible depravity of character; the only plausible excuse that has been brought forward to justify the infliction of capital punishments."
Wollstonecraft seems to value scientific curiosity and reasoning, as a driver of innovation and improvements. pg 46 "He is the only person I have met with here, who appears to have a scientific turn of mind. I do not mean to assert that I have not met with others, who have a spirit of inquiry." Later on pg 71 "A degree of exertion, produced by some want, more or less painful, is probably the price we must all pay for knowledge."
She is travelling to try and do a service for Gilbert Imlay, the American businessman she fell in love with in Paris just after the French revolution. He hasn't been faithful and just a few months earlier Wollstonecraft tried to commit suicide. Their relationship is very precarious (she will arrive home from this trip and find him living with someone else).
pg 36 "had not my spirits been harassed by various causes - by much thinking - musing almost to madness - even by a sort of weak melancholy that hung about my heart at parting with my daughter for the first time."
Wollstonecraft is travelling with her infant daughter. She writes about watching her sleeping daughter and being so afraid for what her life will be knowing what she knows about the limited options for women and the dangers and trials they will face in life.
On pg 36, she writes about her fears for her daughter "the dependent and oppressed state of her sex."
On pg 39 - Wollstonecraft writes about the scenery which leaves "images in the memory which the imagination will ever hold dear"
"Nature is the nurse of sentiment, - the true source of taste; - yet what misery, as well as rapture, is produced by a quick perception of the beautiful and sublime, when it is exercised in observing animated nature, when every beauteous feeling and emotion excites responsive sympathy, and the harmonized soul sinks into melancholy, or rises to extasy [sic]..."
"But how dangerous is it to foster these sentiments in such an imperfect state of existence; and how difficult to eradicate them when an affection for mankind, a passion for an individual, is but the unfolding of that love which embraces all that is great and beautiful."
She likes Norway and the Norwegians, finding them the least oppressed, most free people but she is a bit scathing on their culture. When writing about the many seaports (pg 42), Wollstonecraft notes "The [ship] captains acquire a little superficial knowledge by travelling, which their indefatigable attention to the making of money prevents their digesting[...]"
"politics [...] enlarges the heart by opening the understanding"
"The grand virtues of the heart, particularly the enlarged humanity which extends to the whole human race, depend more on the understanding, I believe, than is generally imagined." Footnote pg 42
pg 43 "a desperate act is not always proof of an incorrigible depravity of character; the only plausible excuse that has been brought forward to justify the infliction of capital punishments."
Wollstonecraft seems to value scientific curiosity and reasoning, as a driver of innovation and improvements. pg 46 "He is the only person I have met with here, who appears to have a scientific turn of mind. I do not mean to assert that I have not met with others, who have a spirit of inquiry." Later on pg 71 "A degree of exertion, produced by some want, more or less painful, is probably the price we must all pay for knowledge."
Some interesting thoughts on the march of time on pg 48, reflecting on ruined buildings (vs embalmed bodies)
"The contemplation of noble ruins produces a melancholy that exalts the mind. - We take a retrospect of the exertions of man, the fate of empires and their rulers; and marking the grand destruction of ages, it seems the necessary change of time leading to improvement. - Our very soul expands, and we forget our littleness; how painfully brought to our recollection by such vain attempts to snatch from decay what is destined so soon to perish."
She has some wonderful turns of phrase about how she is affected by what she sees on her travels.
pg 50 "gazed - and gazed again, losing my breath through my eyes[...]"
Wollstonecraft was a passionate person, self-admittedly:
"You have sometimes wondered, my dear friend, at the extreme affection of my nature - But such is the temperature of my soul - It is not the vivacity of youth, the hey-day of existence. For years have I endeavoured to calm an impetuous tide - labouring to make my feelings take an orderly course. - It was striving against the stream. - I must love and admire warmth, or I sink into sadness." (pg 50)
Wollstonecraft writes that the only thing she dreads is "annihilation", "of being no more [...] that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should only be organized dust.[...] Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable - and life is more than a dream." pg 51
She writes about customs and traditions [pg 55-56 ] "the inertia of reason" similar to a phrase about reason used by someone else, possibly Hume?
She also writes about not needing fables, heavenly or religious inspiration "when reason convinces them that they are happiest who are the most nobly employed."
Wollstonecraft writes about natural beauty and aesthetics saying (pg 62) "my very reason obliges me to permit my feelings to be my criterion"
"Whatever excites emotion has charms for me; though I insist that the cultivation of the mind, by [...] creating the imagination, produces taste, and an immense variety of sensations and emotions, partaking of the exquisite pleasure inspired by beauty and sublimity."
Wollstonecraft contrasts her time in the Norwegian countryside with a period in the city, dealing with various lawyers (about the silver ship). She speaks of their "visages deformed by vice" predicting that "These locusts will probably diminish, as the people become more enlightened." Not true - not that I wish to call lawyers locusts but as the general population has become more educated and with more free will, either society or the law (or maybe it's attendant on greed) has become more complex and lawyers even more prevalent and required. She briefly describes a Danish/Norwegian system of mediators, 2 elected men from each municipality, who act to try and settle disputes (endeavouring to "prevent litigious suits and conciliate differences.")
Very unexpectedly, in the middle of Letter X, Wollstonecraft is detained in a small coastal village and writes "I could almost fancy myself in Nootka Sound [...]" - apparently during the 1790s Nootka Sound was being claimed by Britain and Spain and there was a confrontation between the 2 countries called 'The Nootka Crisis' in 1789, resolved by 3 Nootka Conventions in 1790, 1793 and 1794. Yet another subject I'll have to look into when I have some time.
She writes about an isolated insular town "bastilled by nature - shut out from all that opens the understanding, or enlarges the heart." pg 69
Wollstonecraft wrote these letters during a very difficult period of time, when she was likely quite depressed and anxious about her love affair. This sadness comes out in many passages with somewhat melodramatic language but aptly descriptive "black melancholy hovers around my footsteps; and sorrow sheds a mildew over all the future prospects, which hope no longer gilds." I've certainly been there and felt that.
And in a passage about nature, on pg 84 "the beauties of nature [...] force even the sorrowing heart to acknowledge that existence is a blessing[...]"
"If we wish to render mankind moral from principle, we must [...] give greater scope to the enjoyments of the senses, by blending taste with them."
"if contentment be all we can attain, it is perhaps, best secured by ignorance."
pg 86 "My imagination hurries me forward to seek an asylum in such a retreat from all the disappointments I am threatened with; but reason drags me back, whispering that the world is still the world, and man the same compound of weakness and folly, who must occasionally excite love and disgust, admiration and contempt."
pg 103. Writing about Mathilda, Queen of Denmark and Norway (with whom she seemed to sympathize), she notes "she probably ran into an error common to innovators, in wishing to do immediately what can only be done by time."
She also writes about society's vagaries and judgements. In a passage about public executions (she was against capital punishment) pg 104 "[...] the same energy of character, which renders a man a daring villain, would have rendered him useful to society, had that society been well organized."
Some other bits that I enjoyed:
pg 106 "an adoration of property is the root of all evil"
pg 107 "most of the struggles of an eventful life have been occasioned by the oppressed state of my sex: we reason deeply, when we forcibly feel."
pg 109 "the virtues of a nation [...] bear an exact proportion to their scientific improvements"
pg 127 "A man ceases to love humanity, and then individuals, as he advances in the chase after wealth[...]"
I enjoyed reading this book. It wasn't exactly the travelogue I expected but so interesting to read both about Scandinavia and travelling at that time as well as being a personal account by an interesting woman.
Now on to Vindication. Written 4 years earlier but I had to read this book 1st for an essay that is due this week.
pg 50 "gazed - and gazed again, losing my breath through my eyes[...]"
Wollstonecraft was a passionate person, self-admittedly:
"You have sometimes wondered, my dear friend, at the extreme affection of my nature - But such is the temperature of my soul - It is not the vivacity of youth, the hey-day of existence. For years have I endeavoured to calm an impetuous tide - labouring to make my feelings take an orderly course. - It was striving against the stream. - I must love and admire warmth, or I sink into sadness." (pg 50)
Wollstonecraft writes that the only thing she dreads is "annihilation", "of being no more [...] that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should only be organized dust.[...] Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable - and life is more than a dream." pg 51
She writes about customs and traditions [pg 55-56 ] "the inertia of reason" similar to a phrase about reason used by someone else, possibly Hume?
She also writes about not needing fables, heavenly or religious inspiration "when reason convinces them that they are happiest who are the most nobly employed."
Wollstonecraft writes about natural beauty and aesthetics saying (pg 62) "my very reason obliges me to permit my feelings to be my criterion"
"Whatever excites emotion has charms for me; though I insist that the cultivation of the mind, by [...] creating the imagination, produces taste, and an immense variety of sensations and emotions, partaking of the exquisite pleasure inspired by beauty and sublimity."
Wollstonecraft contrasts her time in the Norwegian countryside with a period in the city, dealing with various lawyers (about the silver ship). She speaks of their "visages deformed by vice" predicting that "These locusts will probably diminish, as the people become more enlightened." Not true - not that I wish to call lawyers locusts but as the general population has become more educated and with more free will, either society or the law (or maybe it's attendant on greed) has become more complex and lawyers even more prevalent and required. She briefly describes a Danish/Norwegian system of mediators, 2 elected men from each municipality, who act to try and settle disputes (endeavouring to "prevent litigious suits and conciliate differences.")
Very unexpectedly, in the middle of Letter X, Wollstonecraft is detained in a small coastal village and writes "I could almost fancy myself in Nootka Sound [...]" - apparently during the 1790s Nootka Sound was being claimed by Britain and Spain and there was a confrontation between the 2 countries called 'The Nootka Crisis' in 1789, resolved by 3 Nootka Conventions in 1790, 1793 and 1794. Yet another subject I'll have to look into when I have some time.
She writes about an isolated insular town "bastilled by nature - shut out from all that opens the understanding, or enlarges the heart." pg 69
Wollstonecraft wrote these letters during a very difficult period of time, when she was likely quite depressed and anxious about her love affair. This sadness comes out in many passages with somewhat melodramatic language but aptly descriptive "black melancholy hovers around my footsteps; and sorrow sheds a mildew over all the future prospects, which hope no longer gilds." I've certainly been there and felt that.
And in a passage about nature, on pg 84 "the beauties of nature [...] force even the sorrowing heart to acknowledge that existence is a blessing[...]"
"If we wish to render mankind moral from principle, we must [...] give greater scope to the enjoyments of the senses, by blending taste with them."
"if contentment be all we can attain, it is perhaps, best secured by ignorance."
pg 86 "My imagination hurries me forward to seek an asylum in such a retreat from all the disappointments I am threatened with; but reason drags me back, whispering that the world is still the world, and man the same compound of weakness and folly, who must occasionally excite love and disgust, admiration and contempt."
pg 103. Writing about Mathilda, Queen of Denmark and Norway (with whom she seemed to sympathize), she notes "she probably ran into an error common to innovators, in wishing to do immediately what can only be done by time."
She also writes about society's vagaries and judgements. In a passage about public executions (she was against capital punishment) pg 104 "[...] the same energy of character, which renders a man a daring villain, would have rendered him useful to society, had that society been well organized."
Some other bits that I enjoyed:
pg 106 "an adoration of property is the root of all evil"
pg 107 "most of the struggles of an eventful life have been occasioned by the oppressed state of my sex: we reason deeply, when we forcibly feel."
pg 109 "the virtues of a nation [...] bear an exact proportion to their scientific improvements"
pg 127 "A man ceases to love humanity, and then individuals, as he advances in the chase after wealth[...]"
I enjoyed reading this book. It wasn't exactly the travelogue I expected but so interesting to read both about Scandinavia and travelling at that time as well as being a personal account by an interesting woman.
Now on to Vindication. Written 4 years earlier but I had to read this book 1st for an essay that is due this week.
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