“Europe at that time was thrilled with joy, / France standing on the top of golden hours, / And human nature seeming born again.” (William Wordsworth)
“It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity - and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world.” (Mary Wollstonecraft)
Inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution, a young William Wordsworth and his like-minded British contemporaries envisioned an egalitarian society emerging from the ruins of the old order. Yet as Mary Wollstonecraft pointedly observed in her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, the values of “liberty, fraternity, and equality” were flawed insofar as they did not extend to women. Amid political and social turmoil, rapid industrialization, and eventual Napoleonic world war, a range of British intellectuals politicized the subjection of women. Redefining the construct of femininity was, for these writers, central to the precarious project of “reforming… the world.”
We begin by examining the literary contexts that motivated Wollstonecraft to write her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, a work that represents a landmark in the history of feminist thought. The close collaboration between William and Dorothy Wordsworth will also serve as a touchstone for considering the gender politics of Romantic literary production. From there, we will read Lord Byron and Felicia Hemans, the two most popular authors from the “second generation” of Romantics, who espoused even as they undermined traditional gender roles. We conclude with Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, a novel that puts pressure on Wollstonecraft’s provocative characterization of women as slaves to patriarchy.
I envision the class as a discussion-based seminar that relies on student input to fuel the conversation. The assignments will include four papers, regular discussion questions, and active class participation.
“It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity - and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world.” (Mary Wollstonecraft)
Inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution, a young William Wordsworth and his like-minded British contemporaries envisioned an egalitarian society emerging from the ruins of the old order. Yet as Mary Wollstonecraft pointedly observed in her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, the values of “liberty, fraternity, and equality” were flawed insofar as they did not extend to women. Amid political and social turmoil, rapid industrialization, and eventual Napoleonic world war, a range of British intellectuals politicized the subjection of women. Redefining the construct of femininity was, for these writers, central to the precarious project of “reforming… the world.”
We begin by examining the literary contexts that motivated Wollstonecraft to write her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, a work that represents a landmark in the history of feminist thought. The close collaboration between William and Dorothy Wordsworth will also serve as a touchstone for considering the gender politics of Romantic literary production. From there, we will read Lord Byron and Felicia Hemans, the two most popular authors from the “second generation” of Romantics, who espoused even as they undermined traditional gender roles. We conclude with Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, a novel that puts pressure on Wollstonecraft’s provocative characterization of women as slaves to patriarchy.
I envision the class as a discussion-based seminar that relies on student input to fuel the conversation. The assignments will include four papers, regular discussion questions, and active class participation.
- Instructor: Daniel Block