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 Both Barbauld and Wollstonecraft went unpublished for over one hundred years after their deaths because their works directly denied the status quo.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.
Romantic--with a Capitol 'R'--Poetry 