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.
Romantic--with a Capitol 'R'--Poetry 