Deconstructing the Boundaries
Gender and Genre in Mary Wollstonecraft'sLettersWrittenDuring aShortResidencein Sweden, Norway and Denmark
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3642864 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Valentina Pramaggiore (0000-0002-9771-1161, University of Bologna, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 7 |
| Pages | 837-845 |
| Publication date | 2019-10-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Gender Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0958-9236 • E-ISSN: 1465-3869 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09589236.2019.1660147 |
| OpenAlex | W2978012132 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 8 |
In her 1796 travelogue, Wollstonecraft combines the main elements of many different genres, blending together the physical-geographical account of the countries she was visiting with her own feelings, producing a Romantic conception of the human being overwhelmed by and subsumed into the natural elements. The journey through the Scandinavian countries turns out to be more than a business travel. It takes the shape of an inner route, a rediscovery of herself and of her experiences, including motherhood. The ability to dismantle the boundaries of the travel writing genre in such an innovative way is the same ability she shows when subverting the literary gender stereotypes that saw women marginalized inside the domestic sphere. What emerges from this extraordinary epistolary collection is a woman capable of the greatest sentimentality and, at the same time, of the smartest rationality, an active woman who does not deny her femininity but who strongly refuses the passivity society has always attributed to the female
Art · Feeling · Femininity · Literature · Residence · Romance · Sentimentality · Sociology · American and British Literature Analysis · Gender Studies · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Psychology · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment · Social Psychology
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |