Romantic–with a Capitol 'R'–Poetry

My plan was to begin drafting last week, but my plans were shifted by other assignments with closer due dates. Prioritizing has been my friend and my enemy during this quarantine because I tell myself I can finish something before I start the thing that is due Sunday; it never works. The assignments I try to delay always take longer than I expect, so I have to stop and focus on those first. Monday to Sunday always seems longer than it turns out to be, yet each day passes quicker and quicker.

I have been mostly productive during this time, though not as productive as I wish I could have been in hindsight. I do have all my sources read through and organized to make the essay writing process go smoother. Now all I have to do is start. The plan is to start drafting this week and have most of this essay finished. I’m trying to avoid putting everything off because I know that will easily overwhelm me. I’m not worried about this essay because I’m actually excited to write it. The other essay’s I still have to write will be harder to finish. Such is the life of an English major! Hopefully my classmates have more motivation than I do and can spare some for me!

After reading the first part of Volume III of Mansfield Park, I recognized a theme that connects back to Mary Hays’ Victim of Prejudice. The reason Mary the character cannot get a job after she is “tainted” is based on the perception of her reputation following her relationship with Sir Peter. The employers are worried that her reputation will somehow affect their business, and they refuse to hire her because she is bad for business. Mary is an outcast of society based on what they think they know about her. She didn’t choose to be in the situation she finds herself in, but when she tries to improve her situation, she realizes she has no social mobility as a woman.

In the same way, I questioned whether this is the reason why Mrs. Norris chooses not to visit her sister, who she hasn’t seen in twenty years, is to avoid being tainted by her sister’s circumstance. The reason Fanny was brought to Mansfield Park was to help Mrs. Price take care of her family by having one less child in the house. Mrs. Norris is aware that her sister is living in reduced circumstances, yet the only help she provides is taking in one of her children. When she is given the opportunity to visit her sister, she chooses to stay in Mansfield Park where she is needed. Mrs. Norris doesn’t want the contamination that might come from visiting her poor sister. Mrs. Price is a victim of prejudice in her own family because she didn’t marry as well as her sisters. Though the situations vary because Mrs. Price is never considered a ruined woman, both women are judged for their circumstance and not their merit.

One article that has interested me during my research is by Julia Saunders titled, “’The Mouse’s Petition’: Anna Laetitia Barbauld and the Scientific Revolution”. Saunders discusses Barbauld’s relationship with science as wanting to be involved, but limited by society to how she could participate. Barbauld’s fascination with science led her to write many poems inspired by scientific experiments and nature. Her writing displays the capability to understand the complexities of the experiments, yet her gender was seen as incapable of comprehending the new ideas. The article discusses Barbauld’s relationship with a male scientist Joseph Priestly and her firsthand experience with a scientist. Learning more about Barbauld has helped me understand her connections with Wollstonecraft and the plight of women during the Enlightenment.

I haven’t given as much thought to this essay as I should have, but I’m hoping to change that this week. I’ve had a difficult time with staying focused with moving everything online. I’m doing better at getting motivated, and I think I’m adjusting more. For my essay, I want to focus on Wollstonecraft and Barbauld and their fight for women’s rights. I haven’t mapped out my thoughts beyond that, but I hope to have it narrowed down by the end of the week.

Reading Mansfield Park, I was struck by the idea of a girl being “out” in society, and how it relates to Mary Hays’ novel. Part of a girl growing up at this time was waiting to be introduced into society. In Mansfield Park, Miss Crawford questions whether Fanny is “out” in society. She explains a girl “not out” wears the same dress style and is quiet most of the time (Austen 76). As the conversation continues, they establish that Fanny is not out because she doesn’t attend balls. This ritual determines the acceptance of girls into society as women, and if they fail to make a good impression, they could remain unmarried.

Thinking about this with Mary Hays, I wondered whether Mary Raymond was introduced into society before her father died. Hays and Austen are only separated by twenty years, making it possible that this ritual spanned both of their careers. Would it have made a difference if Mary Raymond was introduced into society before her father died? Could she have met a reasonable marriage partner? Would she have been saved from ruin? I don’t know that any of this would have helped her, but it raises more questions than it answers. Mr. Raymond’s parenting choices are again scrutinized because Mary was ruined by the society she knew nothing about.

I believe I have all of my sources for my essay. My goal moving forward is to pick the best selections to help me with my argument. I have found many good articles that discuss certain aspects about both Mary Wollstonecraft and Anna Barbauld. Narrowing down that research to produce the best argument I can is the next step in the process for my essay writing. Once I have gathered all the information I need, I plan to make an outline to streamline my ideas and organize myself.

If I have any concerns, it would be that I have two other essays to write as well. Keeping everything organize will help to keep my thoughts straight as I move forward. This semester has been crazy with the cancellation of school and moving to online classes, but I’m finishing everything in the best way that I can. Of the three essays I have to write, I think this one is the most interesting and the one I’m most excited to write.

Looking at Appendix A, Mary Hays writes an Appeal to the Men of Great Britain in Behalf of Women in 1798, a year before she publishes The Victim of Prejudice. I find this interesting because her appeal addresses the problems she has with society’s treatment of women in a direct manner, while her novel addresses the same problems, but through fiction. Publishing both of these works within a year of each other implies that Hays was unhappy with the reaction to her first address and had to make a second one.

The Victim of Prejudice uses Sir Peter as a dramatized example of a man “vested with authority over women” (Ty 217). He bursts into Mary’s life repeatedly and always unannounced, until finally he takes her “honor” (Ty 118). Though Sir Peter’s character seems overly dramatic in his construction, he embodies everything Hays intends her audience to recognize about men and their seemingly unlimited power over women. Sir Peter says, “Who would support you against my wealth and influence,” asserting that his power in a court of law is far greater than hers (Ty 119). Hays addresses this same idea in her Appeal stating, “the female sex ought to be protected by explicit and indisputable laws, from insult and oppression” (Ty 218). The repetition of these thoughts in works that were publish within a year of each other, displays the importance of the topic Hays is trying to address. She wanted change in her society for the betterment of women, and she was willing to dramatize the actions of men to demonstrate how terrible their actions were toward women.

Through my research I have found that men of the Enlightenment period were afraid of the possibility of women becoming the dominant gender. The Enlightenment called for a change in society called the “civilized personality,” based upon characteristics that were deemed feminine. This transformation of men taking on feminine-like characteristics left men feeling vulnerable to becoming the weaker sex. Their reaction to these ideas in part added to the rejection of Wollstonecraft’s call for equality between the sexes. After her death, the men who felt threatened by her words had the power to ruin her reputation for the following generations.

             I found this part of my research interesting because I don’t have a lot of background on the Enlightenment, and I was unaware of the movement toward feminine characteristics that philosophers wanted. The characteristics in question, peaceability, sensibility, sympathy, and sociability, don’t seem strictly feminine to me, but when the man is meant to be viewed as the strong leader of the household, any compassion for another person’s feelings would seem weak. The patriarchy was only concerned with how men could be better, yet they weren’t willing to change for the improvement of society. Adding this to my research about Wollstonecraft and Barbauld, I would question how men would have reacted if a man had written their works and asked for equality for both sexes? If men didn’t want to change their behavior to better society, then they obviously wouldn’t want to help women change their behavior to better society.

While reading Mary Robinson’s A Letter to the Women of England, I had a sense of déjà vu like I had read something similar. Halfway through her letter it dawned on me that her letter sounded like Antony’s speech from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Robinson reiterates the question are women oppressed because they are the weaker sex (218)? Robinson discusses different physical tasks she has seen women perform and ends the paragraph questioning why women are the weaker sex, if they can accomplish all these difficult tasks. In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Antony reiterates the idea that “Brutus is an honorable man” (Shakespeare). The examples within the speech, however, describe Brutus as honorable for taking part in the execution of Caesar. The juxtaposition of calling Brutus dishonorable and linking him with a dishonorable deed works in the same way for Robinson because she describes women performing physical tasks and questions whether they can accomplish them.

Robinson’s strategy works well because she describes how men view women, then gives examples of the hard labor that most women do for their husbands. Antony’s speech allowed him to become one of the next leaders of Rome, but Robinson’s letter did not have the same societal impact. Robinson proves her own point about women’s education creating better opportunities for women because it’s her familiarity with Shakespeare that helps her establish a successful argumentative strategy.

Shakespeare, William. “Speech: ‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend Me…” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, Jan. 2003, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56968/speech-friends-romans-countrymen-lend-me-your-ears.

During my research for my final essay, I found an article from our guest speaker, Mark Canuel. His article titled “Wollstonecraft and World Improvement,” discusses Wollstonecraft’s Letters and how Wollstonecraft’s imaginative writing inspires her readers on new possibilities, fulfilling the role of Enlightenment. This article applies to my final essay because I chose to focus on Mary Wollstonecraft and the Enlightenment. Canuel argues that Wollstonecraft wrote the letters “about somewhere and nowhere at the same time,” suggesting that her nonfiction included descriptive imagery that made it seem fictious (Canuel 140). The descriptive imagery allowed the reader to believe they were traveling with Wollstonecraft instead of reading about a person who has been to these places. Wollstonecraft fulfills her Enlightenment goals by exposing her readers to different cultures and using those cultures as examples on how to improve British culture.

My final essay not only focuses on Mary Wollstonecraft, but also includes Anna Barbauld. Of the women we have looked at so far, I thought these two were the most alike in technique and topic. I plan to discuss how each of these women approached the Enlightenment, and how each of their reputations were ruined after their deaths. Both Barbauld and Wollstonecraft went unpublished for over one hundred years after their deaths because their works directly denied the status quo. Now, they have been brought back into the literary conversation, and used as examples of early feminists.

Continuing my reading of the Wollstonecraft Letters, I’ve picked up on another issue on which Wollstonecraft focuses. Besides the conflict between genders, Wollstonecraft writes about the treatment of the environment in the different cities she visits. Nature is a major topic for Romantic authors, so writing about her experiences in different countries makes sense. While visiting Christiania, she observes the farmers, who now “find it necessary to spare the woods a little” (Wollstonecraft 131). She comments on the change in respect for the environment in the way the farmers have ceased to cut down as many trees. Environmental studies were not established at this time, and though populations appreciated nature, this example of the farmers seems to be a new way of protecting the forests. This proves that Wollstonecraft was focused on more than the issues between people; she also looked at the relationship between people and their environment.

Though she appreciated nature, Wollstonecraft’s relationship with the country, in this case smaller towns outside of the urban areas, was not good. Wollstonecraft writes, “no place is so disagreeable and unimproving as a country town,” suggesting she finds being too close to nature inconvenient (117). The disconnect between loving nature, but hating a country town impedes her argument for preserving nature because, though it is a town, it is more connected to nature than the city. Being from the city, Wollstonecraft has an idea that nature is separate from the people, and once she sees people living in nature, she decides that is unnatural. Wollstonecraft does her best to make an argument for the protection of the environment, but her own dislike of people close to nature ruins her argument.