Talk:Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark/Archive 1

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Waterfall picture

Does anyone have a picture of the Trollhätten waterfall that Wollstonecraft visited? Awadewit | talk 23:28, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It's probably Trollhättan. Maybe this picture? /Nicke L 19:36, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Vowels do matter, despite what George Bernard Shaw said. Thanks! Awadewit | talk 04:42, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Page name

The entire title of this book is Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark; that seemed a bit length for an article title. Unfortunately, scholars don't all abbreviate the title the same way. Is the current page name acceptable? Awadewit | talk 18:35, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Modern reprints: the 1987 Penguin edition

I've taken the liberty of correcting the citation of the 1987 Penguin edition, adding the editor, Richard Holmes, and including William Godwin as author of the Memoirs of the Author of 'The Rights of Woman'. (Godwin shortens the title of Wollstonecraft's book in the title of his Memoirs.)

Since this edition came from Penguin in the UK (the London address is the first one on the copyright page, it was printed in the UK and the price on the back cover is given in pounds sterling first), I've changed the place of publication from New York to London.--GagHalfrunt 18:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

GA on Hold

  • Correct the subsection titles (those having quotes)
  • I was not aware the quotations are prohibited in section headings (I didn't see anything in WP:HEAD, for example, but I could have missed it). I thought it was nice to highlight Wollstonecraft's own language. Awadewit | talk 20:22, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Basically, it's too eyecatching and doesn't convey the subject clearly. Vikrant Phadkay 14:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I have removed the quotes, although I do feel that "Hapless woman" conveys the subject much more clearly than just "Gender". Awadewit | talk 15:51, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Which paragraphs would you suggesting merging? I thought that I had divided them logically: 1) introduction, 2) biographical background, 3) style and themes, 4) reception and legacy. This structure also mirrors the structure of the article. Awadewit | talk 20:22, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Merge 1) and 2) in that case. Not the structure but the content should be mirrored. Vikrant Phadkay 14:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Why exactly do those four paragraphs need merging into three?--Rmky87 22:56, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oops! its Okay, I just read four there. Vikrant Phadkay 14:34, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

GA and articlehistory

Please stop adding empty articlehistory templates to this article; it causes the article to populate the error category. Editors building articlehistory are encouraged to read the instructions at {{ArticleHistory}}. Further, the GA was not passed correctly; it needs an oldid, date and topic. Please fix so that ArticleHistory can be built correctly. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:01, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

FAC comments

Here are some points that occurred to me while reading the article for FAC review. None of them affect my support for the article, so I am placing them here. Some are little more than musings; please ignore anything that's off the mark.

It's an excellent article; congratulations to the astonishingly diligent Awadewit. Two general points struck me, probably too general to be actionable.

  • I felt that the narrative structure and journey were somewhat forgotten once the analysis started, and so I didn't really have a progressive sense of the interactions between Wollstonecraft's reflections and the experiences and sights of her journey.
  • Do you mean the specific places? So, for example, I should mention more about where the waterfall is located in the "Nature" section and what she was doing there? Same for the Queen example? Awadewit | talk 00:28, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
You could have done; but it's probably not necessary given the structure of the article. It's an intriguing article because I think it could have been written in several different ways. Being rather a plodder, I would probably have picked my way through the journey, sampling Wollstonecraft's ideas in context. Like her, I would probably have punctuated the ideas with geographical interludes. I don't mean that that would be a better approach, though (unlike you, I've only read the work; not the criticism).qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The Gilbert Imlay angle was not sufficiently exploited, I sensed. I would have found it interesting to hear more about what was in Wollstonecraft's actual "despondent and plaintive love letters" to him, as well as what happened at Hamburg and why, and what happened when Wollstonecraft got back to England and found out what he was up to. In particular, I think the following begs for expansion: "While Wollstonecraft initially believed that the trip might resurrect their relationship, she eventually recognized that it was doomed, particularly after Imlay failed to meet her in Hamburg." If Wollstonecraft believed this, for example, I think the evidence for that belief, which must surely be documentary, could be juxtaposed with moments in the journey. The evidence (presumably to be found in the original letters sent by Wollstonecraft, albeit edited by Godwin) for the timing of her realisations and recognitions that the relationship was doomed might be linked to the mounting expressions of melancholy during her journey, as touched on in the article's "The letters which make up the text, drawn from her journal and from missives she sent to Imlay, reflect her anger and melancholy over his repeated betrayals" (one thinks, "ooh, go on, what betrayals?").
  • Much of this information is biographical and belongs on the Mary Wollstonecraft page, in my opinion, not on a page about Letters from Sweden. I think it is important to know the outline of the biographical background but not to dwell too much on it; critics do the same when they are writing about the text outside of a Wollstonecraft biography. I worry about the page turning into a strict biographical reading of the text. Awadewit | talk 00:28, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate your approach; there is certainly a school of thought that concentrates on the internal elements of a text rather than the external background. Nevertheless, I longed to know more about the "real" letters, in particular because it is clear that Wollstonecraft goes on two journeys: the physical one and the emotional one. I just think the emotional one might more specifically inform the interpretation of the text, which is in many ways enigmatic. Wollstonecraft largely describes the land and people and inserts her political opinions; but the melancholy asides and cryptic references aren't fully transparent to the reader because she holds back (for example, she addresses "you", but is this Imlay or a symbolic reader?). I feel that the article tells us certain things without giving the reader the evidence for it (I don't mean sources; I mean joined-up dots in the text) or following up; for example, we are told that Wollstonecraft thought the trip might resurrect the relationship. How do we know that? We are told that she transforms her sorrows: is that a general point, or can we trace that in the writing by comparing the text to external letters and sources? We find out that her letters contained long passages about herself and expressing her doubts, but for me that is tantalisingly vague.qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • One reason not to give all of the details is that the original readers of Letters Written in Sweden would not have known them; Wollstonecraft was intentionally vague.
  • I agree that Wollstonecraft's emotional journey informs the text, unfortunately because Godwin severely edited the Imlay letters we do have and we don't have Wollstonecraft's journal (as fas I know), tracing that emotional journey and comparing it to Letters Written in Sweden is very speculative. Some scholars de-emphasize the personal precisely because it has been emphasized in relation to this text so much - to the exclusion of the political. I think one of the interesting questions is: what is the effect of those cryptic asides when the reader doesn't know the details?
  • I'm not entirely sure why scholars think that Wollstonecraft thought the trip might resurrect the relationship - that would be filling in their arguments, unfortunately.
  • I agree with you regarding the vagueness - perhaps I'll publish something someday! Awadewit | talk 23:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
On the third point, it does not seem to me that the article presents this as an argument. The article presents this view of Wollstonecraft's motivation as a fact; so I assumed it was a fact. If it is undocumented, then should it not be presented as a supposition?qp10qp 21:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
All motivations are supposition, it's just that all of the scholars I read agree on the motivation and present it this strongly. It could be that Wollstonecraft wrote a letter saying "I am going on this trip to resurrect our relationship." Would that make it her only motivation? Probably not. I checked Todd and Tomalin and they both strongly suggest that Wollstonecraft wrote letters to this effect but they do not say so explicitly or have footnotes with quotations proving it. Awadewit | talk 00:08, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
  • On a technical note, in that regard, could more possibly said about how she compiled this work? It didn't quite sink in with me at first how utterly these letters were composed/recomposed after the journey. That makes me wonder at her state of mind while she was rewriting as much as that when she was travelling.
  • There isn't much information available on the compilation of the text. See if the new revisions to "Biographical background" make the process clearer. I think what you are asking for, though, is something more substantial. I am hesitant to add what I have seen as it is only referred to by one author - it seems like WP:UNDUE, however interesting it is. Awadewit | talk 05:55, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
OK. I presume her journal doesn't survive. I did find myself wondering what went on between her return to England and the publication, apart from the suicide attempt. That might seem biographical, but the conditions in which someone writes a work are important, I think, and particularly their mental state. But perhaps not much is known. (One cries out, for example, to know whether the fact that the relationship was over by the time she formally wrote the work might have affected its tone—for example in the anonymizing of Imlay and his precise business dealings; but it sounds like that will have to remain another enigma.)qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Literary critics (and I as one of them) agree that the conditions of writing are crucial; unfortunately, there is just not much to go on for this period in Wollstonecraft's life. The relationship with Imlay petered out in a terrible, drawn-out way. Much could be speculated, but, again, all of that would sound even more vague. Awadewit | talk 23:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
By the way, one small question: the article says that Wollstonecraft increasingly realised that the relationship was doomed, particularly after Imlay failed to meet her in Hamburg; her own article says "When she returned to England and came to the full realization that her relationship with Imlay was over, she attempted suicide...". Does this alternative wording suggest that she still had hopes when she returned to England, however small? If so, then she would probably have been in a different mental state when compiling the work (after final rejection) than when writing the journals and the original letters. This may be biographical speculation, but it would be relevant to analysis of the text itself, I think. Has anyone looked at the omissions, additions, changes in that light? (Sorry to go on; I'm actually finding this fascinating.)qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
It is absolutely fascinating - indeed. What is interesting is that different critics say different things - some say she realized the relationship was over in Scandinavia and some say in England - biographers seem to say England, writers on the Letters often say Scandinavia. Sometimes it is unclear. I think she probably still had some hope (various other details not in the biography page lead me to this conclusion). No matter which timeline is correct, her thoughts in Scandinavia would have been different than those in England months later, post-suicide attempt. Comparing the originals, though, is difficult, since Godwin edited the letters to Imlay so heavily and the journal no longer exists. Mary Favret is one of the few who attempts this in her chapter on Wollstonecraft in Romantic Correspondence, but it is very speculative, as you can imagine. Awadewit | talk 23:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Wollstonecraft's despair increased as her journey progressed; frequently returning to the topic of death, "Letters Written in Sweden" can be considered a suicide note addressed to Imlay, although he is never referred to by name in the published text.
This is tantalising, because it leaves me unclear whether Wollstonecraft was already planning to commit suicide during the journey, or whether the effect of Imlay's failure to meet her at Hamburg and the split with him in England produced the the mood of "a long suicide note" to Imlay. Trying to get my head round this, I'm thinking that she was still hopeful for part of the journey. Since the book was published in January 1796, the suicide-note aspect may have intervened since September, when she returned to England and started constructing the book. Without knowing the actual letters she wrote to Imlay (were they suicidal at all?), I can't quite join the pieces together here. Obviously Godwin's editing and destructions wouldn't help. I might be quite wrong, but Wollstonecraft's behaviour reminds me of that of Van Gogh and of Sylvia Plath: in other words, I think she was usually attached to life (she surely couldn't have taken that much pleasure in nature if she weren't) but would become afflicted by sudden black moments or storms. The love for her child that comes over in the letters argues, for me, against their being, at least consciously, a covert suicide note (though that may just be a critic's formulation, of course). Elsewhere, the article describes the letters as "akin to the open political letter": for me, that view clashes with the "suicide note" interpretation.
  • I have revised this section a bit, but I'm not sure it answers your questions. I'm not sure Wollstonecraft was hopeful at all. If you read any of the good biographies of her or just read through her letters, you will sense her utter despondence. She doesn't seem to have been a happy person at all. I don't know much about Van Gogh or Plath, but Wollstonecraft made several statements along the lines of "I would kill myself, except for Fanny". She overcame that scruple, obviously. I think she was probably quite seriously depressed for a long time - her family background was not ideal and she was always struggling to make ends meet. However, this is all speculation and probably doesn't belong here. (By the way, notice in the book how her pleasure in nature is often connected to death.) Awadewit | talk 05:55, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
She didn't suffer from the debilitating form that depressions sometimes take; the industry of her trip and intensity of her observations show that she was functioning in overdrive. It reminds me very much of Van Gogh's trip to Arles (do read his letters if you ever have a chance; they are wonderful, though a hankie is needed at the end); but, as you say, this is all speculation.qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • On Wollstonecraft's melancholy and suicidalism, is there any medical scholarship that sheds light on her mental processes at this time?
  • No - it's very hard, as you are well aware, to diagnose someone two-hundred years dead. We can't even say for sure she was depressed (although it certainly sounds like it). Awadewit | talk 05:55, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
It is hard. But one can divide suicidal personalites into broadly different types, I think, based on certain behaviours. The Savage God: A Study of Suicide by A. Alvarez is a good book on the subject, if you ever need some light reading!qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • in order to resolve a business dispute for her lover. I think a little more information here might draw the reader in: the nature of the business proves to be more exciting than it sounds (ships, blockade-running, the whiff of skulduggery; why not throw that hook?).
  • Now reads "retrieve a stolen treasure ship for her lover..." Awadewit | talk 06:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Ha ha. Are you Daphne du Maurier in disguise? qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Do we have any more details or theories about the negotiations she engaged in, perhaps from this Nyström chap? If not, are there any interesting theories? A look at the map gives me the impression that Wollstonecraft was following a trail.
  • I excluded the nuts and bolts of this as they were not very interesting and would take a lot of space to explain (the payoff would be limited in my opinion). Again, as this is supposed to be about the text first and foremost, I sacrificed a section on the intricacies of the negotiations. So much of it is speculation, anyway. Awadewit | talk 06:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough.qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • On the details of her itinerary, by the way, I'm not sure the following is precise enough: "...she embarked for Strömstad, Sweden, where she took a short detour to visit the fortress of Fredriksten, and then proceeded to Larvik, Norway. From there she traveled to Tönsberg, Norway, where she spent three weeks. She then went on to Helgeraa, Risør, Kristiania..." The way I read it (yes, shock, horror, I actually read the text this time) was that she landed at Larvik and then went swiftly to Tønsberg; only later did she go down to Larvik again and Helgeraa and Risør. To do this she had to travel south from Tønsberg, and so I don't think "went on to" is strictly clear, since Christiania is north of Tønsberg (she passes back through Tønsberg on her way to Christiania, but she hardly mentions it the second time).
  • I was following Nyström's summary of the trip there. I hate to say this, but I can't quite follow where you got lost. I reread the paragraph above three times, but I'm still not sure what the problem is exactly. (Perhaps I am too tired.) Awadewit | talk 06:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
OK, it's a small thing; I'll fix it myself. (It's just "went on to". I wouldn't say, for example, that I flew to Washington and then went on to Jacksonville, Orlando and New York, because of the reversal of direction from south to north, and especially if I stopped at Washington again on my way to New York. This may just be me.) qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • On a tiny connected point, I don't think there's any future in redlinking Helgeraa; it is almost certainly Helgeroa, though I wouldn't risk linking that without documentary confirmation; and if it isn't, it's unlikely to be a notable enough place for its own Wikipedia article.
  • Delinked. I couldn't verify that. Awadewit | talk 06:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I should think it would be impossible. In the Gutenberg text, it is called "Helgeraac".qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Also on links, that a time of war link: it's just a personal preference, perhaps, but I've come to the conclusion that this way of doing links is unsatisfactory (some people call them "easter-egg links"). I think the reader should not have to guess what might be on the other end of a link.
  • Find me the name of the war and I'll link it. :) These wars don't really have names like "Seven Years War"; they are just a confusing series of conflicts. Awadewit | talk 06:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I see what you mean. But should we defer such difficulties away from the page by wikilinks? qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure I follow what you mean....sorry. Awadewit | talk 23:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't blame you. It was atrociously expressed. Not a big deal, anyway.qp10qp 21:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The part of the work that I found most striking was Wollstonecraft's amazingly modern condemnation of capital punishment, which arose from her stay at Copenhagen. Unless I'm mistaken, there's no mention of that in the article. A glance at Google Books shows me that books about Wollstonecraft do mention her death-penalty views in relation to Letters from Sweden. I believe it's worth adding (if left to me, I'd actually quote Wollstonecraft [per a secondary source]; it's stunning).
  • Perhaps you could link me to that google search? In the articles and books I read for this page (which was not exhaustive, I admit), there was no mention of capital punishment that I recall. Certainly, it would not a recurring theme that I noticed in my notes. Awadewit | talk 06:51, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
The book that actually quotes her on the subject is this one [1]. It seems to reproduce an article by Mary Heng, described here [2]. (I hope those links come up for you—Google Books links can be volatile from user to user, I think). My search terms are in the box above; I didn't look very far into that search, but the Sapiro and the Speake books on the first page of the results also mention Wollstonecraft's views on capital punishment in this context. qp10qp 23:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
But the author is only quoting Wollstonecraft's views on capital punishment in order to discuss "the effect of creative nonfiction". The paragraph is about narrative style and that is one example. The author is not foregrounding Wollstonecraft's views on capital punishment, in my opinion. Awadewit | talk 03:49, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
I leave it to your judgement. For me, it may not be foregrounded but it's a part of the jigsaw of ideas she presents in the book. The Sapiro mention notes it in that way, it seems to me.qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Since it is not mentioned as a repeating theme by any of the sources I read, I don't think it is necessary to include. Also, I don't want to suggest in the article that Wollstonecraft was debating exactly the same issues we debate today - she wasn't. Using those sorts of examples tends to lead readers astray, I think. Awadewit | talk 23:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Another aspect of the work that struck me was that Wollstonecraft often, though not always, praises the working-class people, seeing them as natural and unaffected. I don't see this mentioned in the article; is that because the scholars do not pick up on it?
  • Actually, this is a point that I left out. My discussion of class, once its own section, has been collapsed into "revolution and progress". I did this because I felt that of all the economic arguments made by scholars, it was the commercial analysis that was most prominent. That is why that section is emphasized over class. You'll note that the other Wollstonecraft articles all discuss class to a greater extent than this one. Let me know if you think I should add more about class. Awadewit | talk 06:51, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I expect it was the fact that I read the work fresh, without referring to any analyses, that made me notice the constant return to this point. The article does touch upon it, so fair enough.qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
I did worry about this. I will think some more about it. It may be worth expanding this section, because, unlike capital punishment, it is a recurring theme that scholars mention. Just not as often as others. Awadewit | talk 23:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • a genre that would have been deeply vexed for her. I'm not familiar with this use of "vexed"; it could just be me. I'm not sure what is meant.
  • Lit crit term - "ambiguous and/or had contradictory meanings" - how best to express this? Awadewit | talk 06:51, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
"Ambiguous", then? qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Changed. Awadewit | talk 23:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • She thus claims the feminine category of the "beautiful" for the most virtuous and useful of women: mothers. Is this wording the source's or Wollstonecraft's? I can't find it in the text: Would Wollstonecraft implicitly devalue women who weren't mothers?
  • Yes and no. :) None of these excellent questions you ask has easy answers, I'm afraid. This is one reading of the text; it is fairly easy to challenge it with sections of the Rights of Woman, for example, where she celebrates female geniuses. One can never be dogmatic about Wollstonecraft. :) Awadewit | talk 06:51, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Despite all the critical attention that has been paid to Wollstonecraft, I feel slightly sorry for her. Quite often, it seems to me that critics (to judge by quotes and refs in the articles) ventriloquise her as saying less subtle things than she did say.qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
That tends to be a problem with early "feminists"; scholars have tended to read what they want into them (see Margaret Ezell's work). I think, though, that the scholarship on Wollstonecraft has gotten markedly better. It is hard to do it justice here, of course. Awadewit | talk 23:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Thomas Brown: looking him up on Google Books, am I right in saying that he published his book in 1816? If so, perhaps that could be stated, because the positioning of that information gave me the momentary impression that his response came before the Memoirs.
I can relax.qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Well done again! qp10qp 23:00, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Thanks. Did you like the book? I think it is Wollstonecraft's most interesting, after Rights of Woman. For obvious reasons, I am partial to Original Stories as well, but I try not to let that taint my judgment. :) Awadewit | talk 06:51, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I loved it. I enjoy travel writing of all sorts. I meant it when I said I thought it would make a great subject for a novel; not a popular one, of course (the spatial separation between Mary and Imlay would be too unsatisfactory, in bestseller terms), but the sort that could suit the Booker prize, given that so many contemporary works of serious fiction are obsessed with intertextuality. The overlaying of three narratives could be so rich; the narrative of Mary's relationship with Imlay, the narrative of her journey, and the narrative of her inner emotional journey. I can imagine Julianne Moore playing our heroine (as she would become) in the film. Do you write novels? You've certainly got the energy. qp10qp 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I wish I were so creative. Awadewit | talk 23:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
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