Feminism on the horizon

The role of gender as portrayed in the female travel writings of Mary Wollstonecraft and Fredrika Bremer

Bregje van de Straat 10556087 MA European Studies (Identity and Integration) University of Amsterdam Supervisor: dr. A.J. Drace-Francis Second Supervisor: dr. M.J.M. Rensen

September 2018

Table of Contents

Introduction 3 Theoretical Framework and Methodology 4 Chapter 1 Biographies of Wollstonecraft and Bremer 10 1.1 Mary Wollstonecraft 11 1.2 Fredrika Bremer 16 1.3 Conclusion 21 Chapter 2 Descriptions of Landscape: the Picturesque and the Sublime 23 2.1 The Picturesque and Sublime in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters 24 2.2 Fredrika Bremer’s England and the Picturesque and Sublime 27 2.3 Conclusion 30 Chapter 3 Center-Periphery 32 3.1 Center-Periphery in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters 33 3.2 Center-Periphery in Fredrika Bremer’s England 37 3.3 Conclusion 40 Chapter 4 Gender and Travel 41 4.1 The Political and the Self 43 4.2 Feminine Themes 46 4.3 Fear of Traveling Alone? 49 4.4 Conclusion 50

Conclusion 52 Bibliography 55

2

Introduction

Women’s travel writing is a relatively new genre, and most books on women’s travel writing focus on writers from the English-speaking world.1 While I, like these books, will be analyzing a British author, Mary Wollstonecraft, as well, I will also be examining the work of a Swedish author, Fredrika Bremer, as her work on her travels to England has not received much academic attention. I hope to add to the academic appreciation of Bremer’s work in the genre by analyzing Bremer’s England om hösten år 1851 [transl.: England in the fall of the year 1851], which is comprised of a series of articles she wrote for Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, and juxtaposing it with Wollstonecraft’s Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.2 I have also chosen to analyze the works of two authors that are visiting each other’s countries, because their opinions and observations in the context of a literary analysis could create a fuller picture of the role of gender in the times in which they wrote.

I have chosen to focus on and write about Britain and Sweden for this Master thesis, because both countries are geographically located on the edges of Europe and though they are members of the European Union – for now, both joined much later than most of Western Europe (Britain in 1973 and Sweden in 1995)3 and chose to keep their own currencies when the Euro was introduced.4 I chose to analyze the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries because of the status of each country at that time: Great Britain was in the midst of an Industrial Revolution whereas Sweden was still a mostly agricultural society, their industry did not develop on such a large scale until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although the European Union did not quite exist yet at the time of writing for both primary texts, Britain and Sweden were both following their own path at the time.

While the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries seem far away from today, some of the themes I will be discussing are still relevant today. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the British had a vast colonial empire and an Industrial Revolution ahead of most other

1 Some examples being Shirley Foster and Sara Mills’ An anthology of women’s travel writing, or Sara Mills’ Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and Colonialism. 2 This is the original title of the work, the version I read changed the title to Letters written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. 3 European Union, “Countries,” https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/countries_en#tab-0-1, accessed 28 June 2018. 4 European Union, “The euro,” https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/money/euro_en#euro, accessed 28 June 2018. 3

(European) countries. It would be intriguing to see through Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, whether the British had a sense of superiority similar to the air of superiority that the Brexit vote in 2016 seemed to show. Today, Sweden is known for its gender equality and it would be interesting to discover what role gender played in society before it was industrialized, so in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Though gender equality seems to work well in Sweden, it is not quite as equal everywhere else, the recent ‘Time’s Up’ movement proves that a gender division still exists today and is therefore an important subject.5 Because of the inequality in today’s gender roles, looking into the gender roles of the past could prove to be interesting, especially because the authors of the primary sources are both women traveling alone. In patriarchal societies like those in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and still today in some parts of the world, a woman’s role was limited to care in the household, they could for instance only be wives and mothers, and having Mary Wollstonecraft and Fredrika Bremer not just as famous authors but also as women traveling alone shows that they too were following their own paths and escaping the common gender roles.

Theoretical Framework and Methodology Travel writing is a form of literature with a long tradition. The first travel writers we know of stem from before the Common Era. Travel books can serve many purposes, but it could be argued that the main aim is to introduce the reader to the ‘Other’ and thus observing the self and the world.6 Travel writing in more recent centuries focuses on a European perspective on other areas of the world, but there are, of course, also “differences within Europe – there are different Europes – and the ways in which those differences are enforced parallel the processes of Othering enacted elsewhere.”7 Those differences within Europe as can be recognized in travel writing, are also part of a subject called ‘imagology’. Imagology studies characteristics of national characters and countries through text, intertext, and context. This will be explained further below. Part of the context is the genre itself, travel writing, which will be discussed first.

5 Time’s Up, “Time’s Up: The clock has run out on sexual assault, harassment and inequality in the workplace. It’s time to do something about it,” accessed 4 February 2018, https://www.timesupnow.com/. 6 Casey Blanton, “Preface,” in Travel Writing. The self and the world, Casey Blanton (New York: Routledge, 2002), xi. 7 Glenn Hooper and Tim Youngs, “Introduction, ” in Perspectives on Travel Writing, eds. Glenn Hooper and Tim Youngs (Aldsershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2004), 1. 4

As I will be analyzing two travel books written by women who were famous authors in their time, Fredrika Bremer and Mary Wollstonecraft, and women’s travel writing has been seen as different from men’s travel writing – or simply the genre of travel writing – for a long time, the subgenre of women’s travel writing will be discussed later in this thesis as well.

Travel Writing Over the centuries, travel has existed in many forms and for many purposes. At some point in time, written records of such travels came into existence, some of which we know of today. Herodotus, also known as ‘the Father of History,’ is one of these early travel writers. In his work, discovery and the newly discovered world was more important than his inner self. Early works like his often only recorded details of this world. While Herodotus wrote in the fifth century B.C., about ten centuries later there was a Southern-European nun, Egeria, who made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. She wrote letters to other nuns, and this form is closer to modern travel writing than Herodotus’ travelogue. The most important distinction between the two texts is that Egeria detailed her trip, and her text reflects her chronologically traveling places as well as interpreting what she sees and personally experiences. It is for this reason that some see Egeria as the first true travel writer.8 Because Egeria was one of the first travel writers, it is too soon to say whether her gender influenced her writing, because at that time, there were not enough records to compare her work to. More written records of travels began to appear in the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, with more men traveling as merchants, missionaries or explorers. Among these are the well-known travel narratives of Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus who both set out to explore the ‘East’, and ‘Othered’ the people they encountered in their works. ‘Othering’ in such travel texts is an example of judging the unfamiliar countries and their cultures according to the author’s own norms and values, and therefore believing they have control over these ‘others’. With increasing discoveries, such a custom remained prevalent for centuries.9 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, travelers from various European lands explored the New World and brought back travel accounts and stories of the beauty, riches, and freedom, which inspired others, especially the oppressed, to undertake their own journeys. Travel books written by these explorers often consisted mostly of a logbook-like

8 Blanton, “Narrating Self and Other: A Historical Overview” in Travel Writing. The self and the world, 6. 9 Ibid.,” 7-9. 5 account with the inner journey not often used yet, though somewhat emerging. More fictional travel accounts began emerging during this time as well. These accounts contained “purpose, danger, adventure, failure, and new possibilities,”10 which paved the way for a more literary form of travel writing.11 The development of the inner journey in travel writing surfaced in the eighteenth century. This shift in the content of travel books established an importance in both the personality and thoughts of the author as well as the world itself, with flora and fauna as well as people becoming sources of knowledge.12 This enabled the traveler to feel superior over others, as the belief that anything that is older is “primitive and deficient” while anything newer is “European, technologically advanced, and better.”13 The development of the importance of the inner self and the world defined eighteenth and nineteenth century travel writing, and it was an especially important development for women, who could now write somewhat more freely with such topics being associated with their gender. In the works of Fredrika Bremer and Mary Wollstonecraft, who wrote during this time, this reflection of the inner self was prevalent. Their works are the basis of this thesis.

While travel was not as readily available and accessible in the eighteenth century as it is today, it was mostly a privilege for the rich, this did not dissuade travel writers from finding places to travel to and write about. The so-called ‘Grand Tour’ of the European continent was used by wealthy university students and writers to educate themselves because knowledge of the ‘entanglement between the self and the world’ was important for one’s development.14 Throughout the nineteenth century, travel became more accessible and tourism increased, paving the way for new groups of people to travel, like the middle class and women, at times even traveling alone. Because of the Industrial Revolution and the improved transportation it brought, new routes opened up.15 Mary Wollstonecraft still traveled the less frequently explored road to Scandinavia in 1795, while it was easier for Fredrika Bremer to travel to England in 1851, especially because Bremer was traveling to England on her way to Sweden from the United States.

10 Blanton, “Narrating Self and Other,” 11. 11 Ibid.,” 9-11. 12 Ibid.,” 11-12. 13 Ibid.,” 12. 14 Ibid.,” 11. 15 Maureen Mulligan, “Women’s travel writing and the legacy of Romanticism,” Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 14, no. 4 (2016): 326, https://doi.org/10.1080/14766825.2015.1076431. 6

Imagology Imagology is the discipline in which “the origin and function of characteristics of other countries and peoples, as expressed textually, particularly in the way in which they are presented in works of literature, plays, poems, travel books and essays” is studied.16 Newer media such as film and television can be studied under imagology nowadays as well.17

Imagology has a long history: the Ancient Greeks already describe a, albeit vague, distinction between colder (the North) and warmer (the South) regions,18 and in his Spirit of the Laws (1748), Montesquieu developed his so-called ‘climate theory’, in which he ascribes certain characteristics to people from warm and cold climates, attempting to prove that it is the climate in which they live that determines their behavior. People from colder climates are more vigorous, stronger, and are more courageous, whereas the heat from warm climates can “deprive the body of all vigour and strength”.19 This climate theory can still be found in imagology, now as the ‘North-South model’.20 The current form of imagology developed after the Second World War, with French academics beginning to compare national stereotypes in literary texts. From the 1970s, historical and sociological research became part of imagology.21

Representations of national character are part of imagological research, and the focus is the construction of those images. The ‘Self’ is often juxtaposed with the ‘Other’, at times even dictating behavior against the ‘Self’ or the ‘Other’.22 This ‘othering’ can, as previously mentioned, also be found in travel writing.

Imagological research consists of three parts: the text, the intertext and the context. The starting point is of course the text, and the information that comes from that text is the base

16 Manfred Beller, “Perception, image, imagology,” in Imagology: The cultural construction and literary representation of national characters, a critical survey, eds., Manfred Beller and Joep Leerssen (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007), 7. 17 Joep Leerssen, “Imagology: On using ethnicity to make sense of the world,” Revue d’études ibériques et ibéro-américaines, no. 10 (2016): 13, http://imagologica.eu/cms/UPLOAD/Imagology2016.pdf. 18 Astrid Arndt, “North/South,” in Imagology, 387. 19 Baron de Montesquieu, “The cultural consequences of climate (1748),” in European Identity: A Historical Reader, Alex Drace-Francis (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 51-53. 20 William L. Chew, “What’s in a National Stereotype? An Introduction to Imagology at the Threshold of the 21st Century,” Language and Intercultural Communication 6, no. 3&4 (2006): 181. http://dx.doi.org/10.2167/laic246.0. 21 Ibid., 181-182. 22 Ibid., 180. 7 for the intertextual and contextual research.23 The imagological and travel writing topics from both texts that I will be analyzing are the center-periphery, descriptions of landscape through the picturesque and the sublime and of course my main focus, gender. While I will not be dedicating a chapter directly to national character as one would expect in imagological research, I will be focusing on the images that are created with both the imagological topics and travel writing topics, and national character is part of those analyses. These topics will be explained in the chapters that follow. In order to establish an intertext and a context, I will discuss and analyze the works by Fredrika Bremer and Mary Wollstonecraft throughout the chapters through these topics.

I will be analyzing the role of gender in British author Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark and Swedish author Fredrika Bremer’s England om hösten år 1851. In order to do so I will be looking at the lives of Wollstonecraft and Bremer in the first chapter, to see not only whether gender played in important part in their lives, but also to get an idea of the role of travel in their lives, as they were both women traveling alone in a time when that was not common practice. I will then analyze descriptions of the landscape through the concepts of the picturesque and the sublime, because this is an integral part of (women’s) travel writing and though that will be discussed in the fourth chapter on gender, it is my opinion that these theories required a chapter of their own as many women travel writers used landscape as a way to express their innermost thoughts and emotions. The third chapter will be on the theory of the center and periphery, in which I will analyze the different centers and peripheries Wollstonecraft and Bremer visit, as well as discuss the power structures or feelings of superiority that are often associated with this divide between the center and the periphery. The fourth and final chapter will be focused on the more general concept of gender, in which I will be discussing politics as combined with the inner self, themes often associated with women’s travel writing, and a possible fear of traveling alone.

In women’s travel writing, it seems that when focus is placed on gender it is on the difference between male and female authored travel texts. Situated in the context of a time when women traveling and writing about traveling was very unusual and still developing, I have focused on the way gender is treated in Wollstonecraft and Bremer’s texts. I will still analyze the themes

23 Leerssen, “History and Method,” in Imagology, 28. 8 now commonly associated with women’s travel writing and see if and how these are present in the texts by Wollstonecraft and Bremer.

All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. Translations follow the Swedish quotes directly.

9

Chapter 1: Biographies of Wollstonecraft and Bremer

Mary Wollstonecraft and Fredrika Bremer were both known authors in their time. Because both women were exceptional for their time, both in traveling alone and becoming (financially) self-sufficient writers, a biography for both is an important addition to understanding their works, and the thoughts and politics as can be derived from those works.

Most biographies for Fredrika Bremer focus on her travels to the United States instead of her earlier life, writing and travels. I therefore chose a biography written by Bremer’s sister Charlotte, who not only describes Bremer’s early life extensively but also explains why it was difficult for the family to understand why Bremer was so set on traveling rather than staying home and starting a family, which is also an illustration of what was expected of women in nineteenth century Sweden.

Because I chose a biography written by someone close to Bremer, I decided to do so for Mary Wollstonecraft as well, by including the biography written by her husband William Godwin. It is important to note that many argue that Godwin’s biography of Wollstonecraft has caused her works to be denounced. In his biography of his wife, published a year after her death, William Godwin revealed that she had had an affair with Gilbert Imlay, who fathered her daughter Fanny, Godwin’s own affair with Wollstonecraft before they married each other, as well as her two suicide attempts, at a time when suicide was considered a sin by the Anglican Church. Imlay also wrote that Wollstonecraft did not “call on God on her deathbed.” These accusations and revelations caused the press at the time to denounce Wollstonecraft and they branded her immoral by calling her a whore, an atheist, and dangerously revolutionary. Because this exposé of her personal life caused such a public condemnation, many authors found it difficult to use Wollstonecraft’s name when discussing her ideas, even when they did still endorse them.24 An example of this is her contemporary and fellow liberal feminist Mary Hays’ 1803 publication of six volumes with 305 biographies of famous women, in which Wollstonecraft’s biography was not included.25 From the time of Godwin’s publication of Memoirs of the author of A vindication of

24 Anne K. Mellor, “Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and the women writers of her day” in A Cambridge Companion to Mary Wollstonecraft,” ed. Claudia L. Johnson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 155, https://doi-org.proxy.uba.uva.nl:2443/10.1017/CCOL0521783437. 25 Ibid., 145. 10 the rights of woman, focus was on Wollstonecraft’s life rather than her works, and this did not change until the late 1960s and 1970s with the increasing impact of feminist studies, when her works were starting to be republished.26

I will be looking at the authors lives to see how their thoughts and ideas came to be and I will also be looking at the role travel played in their lives, especially because it is somewhat unusual for women to be undertaking journeys such as these authors took alone.

1.1 Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft was born on 27 April 1759 in either London or Epping Forest27 to Edward John, son of a respectable Irish manufacturer28 and Elizabeth, daughter of a Mr. Dixon of Ballyshannon, Ireland, who apparently came from a good family. Mary had one older brother and four younger siblings.29 Her early life was rather unhappy as her father was an ill-tempered and selfish despot, who would frequently hit her mother. Mary would “throw herself be-tween the despot and his victim with the purpose to receive upon her own person, the blows that might be directed against her mother”30 and would apparently sleep by their bedroom door when she thought her father might hurt her mother.31 While the mother was a victim of the father’s tyranny, she could be considered a tyrant as well, because she approved of harsh discipline for her children. She did not care about the education of her children but instead focused on “enforcing their unquestioning obedience even in trifles, and to making them as afraid of her displeasure as they were of their father’s anger.”32 It is likely that Mary’s Wrongs of Woman was based on her own early life.33 Mary and her family moved a lot when she was younger, whenever her father decided on getting a new job or moving in hopes of making more money.34 In 1768, the family moved to Yorkshire where they lived for six years and where Mary received her only formal

26 Claudia L. Johnson, “Introduction” in A Cambridge Companion to Mary Wollstonecraft, 2. 27 Elizabeth Robins Pennell, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (London: Gibbings and Company, Limited, 1909), 5, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015008037361. 28 William Godwin, Memoirs of the author of A vindication of the rights of woman (London: J. Johnson, 1798), 3, Gale, Eighteenth Century Collections Online. 29 Robins Pennell, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, 5. 30 Godwin, Memoirs, 9-10. 31 Ibid., 10. 32 Robins Pennell, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, 8. 33 Godwin, Memoirs, 7-8. 34 Robins Pennell, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, 8-10. 11 education, which was “merely such as was afforded by the day-schools of the place in which she resided.”35 The family then moved to Hoxton, near London, where Mary met their neighbor Mr. Clare, a clergyman, who was apparently deformed and rarely left his drawing room.36 Mary visited him and his wife often and as he was a well-read man, she became his pupil. Mrs. Clare took Mary to Newington Butts, south of London, where she introduced her to Frances (Fanny) Blood.37 Fanny would become a great friend, Godwin writes that during their very first meeting, Mary had “taken, in her heart, the vows of an eternal friendship.”38 Fanny was an accomplished young woman who could sing, play, draw, read and write very well.39 Because they did not live very close to each other, they often wrote letters to each other. Mary thought Fanny’s letters were much more well-written than her own, and realized writing was an art form, which caused an ambition to improve herself. Fanny then became her tutor. Mary’s family was uprooted again when in the spring of 1776 her father decided to go back to farming and move to Wales, where they remained for just over a year. He then decided to move back to London and Mary convinced him to choose Walworth, which was close to Fanny.40 Elizabeth Robins Pennell writes of Mary’s position in the 1780s: “It is difficult for a young man without money, influential friends, or a professional education to make his way in the world. With a woman placed in similar circumstances the difficulty is increased a hundred-fold. […] In Mary Wollstonecraft’s time those whose birth and training had unfitted them for the more menial occupations – who could neither bake nor scrub – had but two resources: they must either become governesses or ladies’ companions. In neither case was their position enviable. They ranked as little better than upper servants. Mary’s first appearance on the world-stage, therefore, was not brilliant.”41 Mary had been thinking of moving out of her parents’ house and in 1778, when she was nineteen, she was offered the position of companion to widow Dawson of Bath. Despite hearing that Mrs. Dawson had a bad temper and that she had had many different companions because of this, Mary accepted the position and lived as a companion for two years and only left when her mother had become very ill. Her mother passed away and some years later, one of Mary’s sisters became

35 Godwin, Memoirs, 14-15. 36 Ibid., 17-18. 37 Robins Pennell, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, 13. 38 Godwin, Memoirs, 20-22. 39 Ibid., 22. 40 Ibid., 24. 41 Robins Pennell, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, 20. 12 ill and she cared for her until she was recovered.42 Before her sister’s illness, Mary and her sisters were forced to leave their father’s home due to his low circumstances. Fanny opened her home to Mary and Mary, not wanting to live off them, helped out where she could to contribute. One sister moved in with their oldest brother as his housekeeper as she too wanted to earn her living rather than live off others. The sister who would fall ill had escaped by marrying, unfortunately to a man with an ill-temper like her father. Her illness was a pregnancy that had apparently turned her temporarily insane and Mary was asked to care for her. Witnessing her sister’s marriage as well as her parents’ and Fanny Blood’s parents’, Mary had formed prejudices against the very institution of marriage. Her sister’s situation was so bad that Mary attempted to have her sister leave her husband even though this meant leaving her newborn. There was nowhere for the sister to go so they simply fled, and they lost many friends because of their actions.43 The only way they could earn money was by Mary becoming a teacher. They moved to Islington to receive pupils but none would come. They then moved to Newington Green where they had friends and relatives and managed to open a school where twenty children would become her pupils. Her sister’s husband had at this point finally agreed to the separation, so they were finally free. Mary’s social circle expanded and she started showing a preference for intellectual men and women.44 While she enjoyed the company of her new friends, Mary still preferred Fanny. When Fanny’s health declined her suitor proposed and after they married, they moved to Lisbon where he was an established businessman.45 Fanny’s health grew worse and she asked Mary to visit her. Mary had to leave the school and house in order to go to Lisbon, so she left her sister in charge of the school and house and her friends had loaned her the money to undertake the journey to Lisbon in 1785. When arriving in Lisbon, Mary immediately started caring for a sick and pregnant Fanny and Fanny’s child was born not long after Mary’s arrival. Fanny died a month or so later. Mary went home to her school quickly and on her journey back, managed to save the lives of many French sailors on a sinking ship by convincing her ship’s captain to take them on board, again showing that she cared for people.46

Her first published work was written not long after these events, when Fanny’s parents were in need of money and neither their son-in-law nor their son would help them. This was a

42 Godwin, Memoirs, 26-30. 43 Robins Pennell, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, 23-31. 44 Ibid., 35. 45 Ibid., 36. 46 Ibid., 39-43. 13 pamphlet called Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, the money she earned with it was immediately given to Fanny’s parents.47 Having no money to live off and being in debt, Mary decided to accept a position as a governess to a noble Irish family, but only for a short time as she wanted the independence to become a writer. Before traveling to Ireland she spent some time with the family who offered her the job as they were traveling to Ireland too and would take Mary with them. They lived at Eton as the head of the family was a master of the school.48 It was there that Mary studied the school and formed opinions on it that she would later recount in her liberal, feminist work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.49 She stayed on as governess for about year and her experiences in the noble Irish household and Irish and English society also became part of Rights of Woman.50 After leaving the family, Mary returned to England where a Mr. Johnson, the man who had published her pamphlet and had subsequently become her friend and frequent correspondent, encouraged her to take up writing as a professions and promised her employment if she moved to London.51 She moved and quickly found rooms to rent close to Mr. Johnson, and as promised, he gave her work, initially as a translator for several French, Italian and German books. During this time she corresponded with the author of one of the books who would translate her Rights of Woman to German some years later.52 Mary also worked as a ‘reader’, meaning that she would read manuscripts and criticize them, and was asked to contribute to the newly established Analytical Review. During this work, she also read a manuscript written by Mary Hays –the author who would later omit Mary’s biography in her collection of biographies of famous women– and though Mary criticized Hays, they would become great friends.53 During this time in her literary career, the French Revolution happened, and Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France was published. Mary “seized her pen in the first burst of indignation”54 and wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Men as an answer to this publication. It was her first major work. While the rights of men she wrote about were of interest to her, she was more interested in the rights of women as they had no advocates to speak for them. Because of this and her own experiences as a woman, she decided to write A

47 Godwin, Memoirs, 52. 48 Ibid., 54. 49 Robins Pennell, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, 50. 50 Ibid., 50-64. 51 Ibid., 65-66. 52 Godwin, Memoirs, 65-67. 53 Robins Pennell, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, 68-71. 54 Godwin, Memoirs, 75. 14

Vindication of the Rights of Woman, the work for which she is best known.55 Godwin describes Rights of Woman as “a very unequal performance, and eminently deficient in method and arrangement. When tried by the hoary and long-established laws of literary composition, it can scarcely maintain its claim to be placed in the class of finished productions. But, when we consider the importance of its doctrines, and the eminence of genius it displays, it seems not very improbable that it will be read as long as the English language endures.”56 Not long after, in December 1792, Mary traveled to Paris by herself and stayed there for two years. She stayed with several different families and met with the leaders of the French revolution, as her reputation because of her outspoken liberal work Rights of Woman had preceded her.57 Mary was in Paris for King Louis XVI’s trial and execution, and when a war broke out between France and England. It was becoming dangerous for English people to live in Paris, and Mary wanted to return to England, which proved impossible at the time. She remained in Paris where she passed a place of execution, where the crowd was still standing and the blood was still fresh. Mary then told the people how inhumane execution was, a belief that can also be seen in her later work Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.58 While in France, Mary met American republican Gilbert Imlay. At the time in France, British citizens had a chance of being arrested and executed along with the French aristocrats and clergy, but the Americans were seen as brothers. Therefore, while they were in love but not actually married, Mary used Imlay’s name and lived with him so she would be protected.59 Mary fell pregnant by Imlay and she named her daughter, who would accompany her to Scandinavia, Fanny, after her friend.60 Not long after, Imlay traveled to London, leaving Mary in France and he grew indifferent towards her. Imlay did ask her to come to London, and she did so in 1795. Feeling the indifference and coldness towards her, Mary attempted to commit suicide for the first time. Imlay somehow managed to prevent this, and sent her to Scandinavia on business that needed a person present. It was during this trip that she wrote the letters that would later be published as Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. When she returned and found out Imlay had another mistress, Mary attempted suicide for the second time, but was found and resuscitated.61

55 Robins Pennell, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, 82. 56 Godwin, Memoirs, 83. 57 Ibid., 100-106. 58 Robins Pennell, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, 116-118. 59 Ibid., 127. 60 Ibid., 133. 61 Ibid., 135-148. 15

Mary and Imlay separated for good but he asked her to keep his name. Mary resumed her work for Mr. Johnson and she later, over the course of several months starting in January 1796, met William Godwin again, whom she had met several years before. They initially did not care for each other, but grew to love one another and married in 1797,62 even though neither believed in the institution of marriage. They did not announce it until it was later necessary because Mary was pregnant.63 Mary gave birth at the end of August 1797 to a girl who would later go on to write Frankenstein.64 Mary had become ill after giving birth due to the placenta not coming out, and died about 10 days later.65

1.2 Fredrika Bremer Fredrika Bremer was a Swedish novelist and travel writer. From a biography written by her sister Charlotte, it becomes clear that the themes, like poverty and caring for the sick and weak, that can be found in her work England om hösten år 1851 are a result of her upbringing, and possibly the basis for her strong opinions and charitable work later in life. While the biography is incredibly extensive and many of the events that are described are important to mention, I will try to keep this biography concise and only illustrate the points that I believe are important to understanding England om hösten år 1851 and Bremer’s beliefs, as well as the role of travel in her life.

Fredrika Bremer was born near Åbo (then Sweden, now Finland) in August 1801 to a father descended from a German noble family that came to Sweden in the seventeenth century, during the reign of King Gustav II Adolf. Grandfather Bremer had moved to Sweden where he acquired wealth through his various enterprises and factories, but shared this wealth by feeding hundreds of his workers and by helping the poor. In 1804, Fredrika’s father moved back to Sweden with his family. Fredrika’s mother had brought the family’s housekeeper, who taught Fredrika and her sister Swedish, with them to Sweden. From 1806, Fredrika and her sister had a governess that taught them, according to her sister Charlotte, “all that we have learnt,”66 and caused Fredrika and her sister to love learning. Charlotte explains that when they were growing up, children did not see their parents much, the governesses were the ones

62 Robins Pennell, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, 185. 63 Godwin, Memoirs, 155-162. 64 Robins Pennell, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, 203-205. 65 Godwin, Memoirs, 178-198. 66 Charlotte Bremer, ed., Life, Letters, and Posthumous Works of Fredrika Bremer, translated by Fredr. Milow (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1868), 2, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hwpvgp. 16 who taught the children and loved and cared for them. Charlotte also explains that the children would be dressed by the governess in the morning and would then go on to greet their parents by curtsying to them. Though the parents did not have much to do with raising their children, Charlotte explains that their mother had laid down some rules for their education: “they were to grow up in perfect ignorance of every thing evil in the world; they were to learn (acquire knowledge) as much as possible; and they were to – eat as little as possible.”67 The ignorance of evil was to keep them pure, but that did not prepare them for the real world. In addition to learning to read and write in Swedish, Fredrika and her siblings learnt to do so in French as well. The rule of eating as little as possible was to keep the girls delicate and because their mother believed that eating a lot would make them slow and stupid. In 1806, the Bremers bought Årsta castle near Stockholm and moved the family there. The Countess who sold it still lived there as well, and Fredrika and her sisters visited her often. Daily life at Årsta was much the same as before: “much reading, little eating, and rarely permission to go out.”68 In 1807, Charlotte and Fredrika had music and drawing teachers, and their governess now taught the younger children. From the age of eight, Fredrika began writing poetry and verses. An especially interesting verse written when she was ten years old, is included in the translated biography Charlotte wrote: can man not learn the art of saving could not our stronger sex be taught not from their poor wives all help craving to save their wages as they ought

to give up cards and take to reading not novels – no – but books more meet and from mad scenes of mirth receding to fly from art to nature sweet69 This verse already sounds like Fredrika was becoming a feminist and an independent mind, even as early on as age 10. From a young age as well, Fredrika displayed an eagerness to know everything and she had a good memory for learning, but, much to her parents’ dismay, she did not have a good memory for things told to her in daily life. On their new estate in Nynäs, where they summered for a couple of years, they met a French clergyman, who had a

67 Bremer, Life, Letters, and Posthumous Works, 4. 68 Ibid., 10. 69 Ibid., 17. 17 mobile home that he had promised to Fredrika, and when she learned she could travel the world she was rather excited. Fredrika and her sister had begun to learn German and English from around nine years old, as well as learning history, geography and other common school subjects. They also learned to dance and their governess had taught them to fashion boxes, baskets and other cases, which they would then sell and use those proceeds to buy clothes for poor children. In 1813, during the Napoleonic wars, a Swedish regiment stayed at Årsta castle, and Fredrika “wept bitterly for not having been born a man, so that she could have joined her countrymen to fight against the general disturber of peace and oppressor of nations. […] She felt that she would not be wanting in courage, if she could only get over to Germany.”70 When she was sixteen, Fredrika ‘came out’ into society and was then allowed to go to balls, dinner and the theater, the latter of which interested her most. She also had to learn ‘household duties’ and cooking, as well as musical composition, for which she also had to learn Italian. Fredrika spent a lot of time with her elder sister Charlotte, who notes that “Fredrika had an instinctive feeling of independence, which manifested itself more and more as she advanced in years.”71 Charlotte also mentions that their father had studied at universities in Germany and traveled to different countries quite a lot. He wanted to move to France but could not afford to sell Årsta castle, so in August 1821, he took his family to travel to winter in Marseilles, but because of an outbreak of disease they ended up wintering in Paris. For Fredrika and her sisters, Paris was probably more beneficial to their education as they had access to “excellent teachers, good and expensive, in music, drawing, painting, and singing.”72 They also had the opportunity to visit the theater, museums, galleries and were invited to balls. They returned to Årsta in June 1822 and while the family was happy to be back and reminisce in general, Fredrika was not because she wanted to travel more. Charlotte mentions that “in those days it was a rare occurrence that a Swedish lady had travelled in foreign countries, - and we had been travelling so far and seen so much of the world!”73

In 1828, Fredrika, having written several novels and stories, decided she wanted them to be published and gave them to her brother to take these works to be published in Uppsala at his university. He managed to get them published, anonymously, and they were a great success. Fredrika earned a little money from it and kept writing. Another book was published in 1830

70 Bremer, Life, Letters, and Posthumous Works, 30-31. 71 Ibid., 39. 72 Ibid., 46. 73 Ibid., 49. 18 and that too was a success. She confided in a family friend that she was the author and received a medal from the Swedish Academy shortly thereafter. Her works were translated into several languages and she became a rather famous author. In 1844, she received another medal for her works and for helping Swedish literature reach other countries.74 In 1861, Fredrika had written about “her travels in Palestine, Greece, and other countries.”75

Their father died in 1830, and her sister Charlotte married soon after and moved to Scania (the south of Sweden), where Fredrika traveled to and stayed for about a year. She had there decided to become an author as her profession. A year later, Fredrika traveled with her mother and some sisters to visit their sick brother and son in Berlin, but he had died when they got there. Fredrika returned to her sister in Scania and like she had nursed her father and younger sister when they were ill, she now cared for her sick friend she met during a previous visit to Scania. She then met a Countess who in 1833 invited Fredrika to spend a year at her estate in Norway, which Fredrika gladly accepted. She enjoyed it there so much that she traveled back and forth to spend winters there for several years. In 1845, after the Countess had died, Fredrika began planning a journey alone to America. Her family was not too pleased at the thought of Fredrika traveling to America alone, but her novels had been well-received there: “At this period the writings of Fredrika Bremer came upon us, suddenly and beautiful as summer comes in her northern clime, and pure and sparkling as its mountain streams, as fresh and invigorating as its mountain air.”76 Because her works were so well-received, people invited her to stay with them in New York and described Bremer in the following manner: “Her [Miss Bremer’s] large and sympathetic heart is attuned to such harmony with humanity, or rather she so expresses this beautiful harmony of her own soul with God, with nature and humanity, that the human heart that has suffered or enjoyed, vibrates and responds like a harp- string to the master-hand…. It is no wonder, then, that homes and hearts have opened to her and that welcome and gratitude await her in every town and village of our country.”77

She traveled from Stockholm to Scania and then Copenhagen (Denmark) in 1848 and traveled to America via London in 1849.78 This brief visit is also discussed at the beginning of

74 Bremer, Life, Letters, and Posthumous Works, 77-79. 75 Ibid., 79. 76 Adolph B. Benson, “American appreciation of Fredrika Bremer,” Scandinavian Studies and Notes 8, no.1 (February 1924): 22. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40915142. 77 Ibid., 22. 78 Bremer, Life, Letters, and Posthumous Works, 82. 19

England om hösten år 1851. Before returning to Sweden after her travels in the United States, Fredrika first spent six weeks in England where she wrote England om hösten år 1851 as a series of articles for Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.79 After many travels, Fredrika returned to Sweden with the idea to liberate the Swedish woman from “the traditional restrictions in her social position, which Fredrika considered to be both injurious and opposed to her natural rights”80 and she wanted women to be allowed to study in schools together with men, from elementary to academy, in order to “gain an opportunity of obtaining employments and situations suitable for them, in the service of the state.”81 She believed that men and women were equal and should have equal opportunities in education and profession. Swedish women at that time did not “attain their majority” when reaching a certain age (often 25) and Fredrika did not agree with this.82 While they had the same education, Charlotte did not agree with Fredrika on many parts –believing that women would be unfit to be wives, mothers, or teachers if competing with men83 – indicating that Fredrika’s travels may be what strengthened her independence and feminist opinions, as she and her sister had the same upbringing.

At some point, though the biography does not mention when, Fredrika and her mother and sisters established a school on their estate where girls could learn handwork. The Swedish government made new requirements in the education of school teachers, and since their school’s teacher did not meet these, a new teacher came and he did not instruct the handwork for the girls.84

In 1853, Stockholm saw a cholera outbreak, and Fredrika wanted to help, so she joined and later became president of a society of women who procured a home for the children who had lost their parents and to aid the poor families where one of the parents had died. Because of her fame, Fredrika managed to collect a large sum of money for the benefit of these orphans and families by publishing a call for donations in newspapers. She later joined a society of women who visited the prisons of Stockholm with the aim of helping to reform the

79 Riksarkivet. “Fredrika Bremer,” Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon, accessed 14 August 2018, https://sok.riksarkivet.se/SBL/Presentation.aspx?id=16936. 80 Bremer, Life, Letters, and Posthumous Works, 82. 81 Ibid., 82. 82 Ibid., 82. 83 Ibid., 83. 84 Ibid., 88-89. 20 prisoners.85 Fredrika dedicated the last years of her life to charitable causes, some of which were: establishing housing for laborers, a home for elderly women and a school for deaf and dumb children.86

Fredrika continued her travels too: in 1856 she traveled for five years, to Switzerland, Greece, Belgium, France, Italy, and Palestine. She returned in 1861 and traveled to Germany the year after as her last travel.87

In her life she saw several developments “at which her heart […] felt the sincerest joy: the abolition of slavery in the United States of America; a law passed in Sweden, that unmarried women should attain their majority at twenty-five years of age; the organization in Stockholm of a seminary for educating female teachers; and the parliamentary reform in Sweden, carried through in such a dignified manner.”88

1.3 Conclusion From these biographies, it becomes clear that Fredrika Bremer and Mary Wollstonecraft had a very different upbringing. Fredrika was brought up in an upper class family and because of this position she was able to get a formal education and her family could afford to travel abroad, which they often did. As a young woman, Fredrika had already seen much of Europe and her independent spirit as well as invitations from admirers of her works to stay with them led her to travel to the New World (the United States) too. Fredrika had also already started writing from an early age, and earned money from her works before she had even decided to become a professional author. Her sister mentions that she was independent from early in her life as well and that this independence only increased as she got older. Fredrika also cared greatly for the sick and those in a less fortunate position, as can be seen in her biography, with Fredrika taking care of sick relatives and friends, helping the poor by selling things she made to help buy clothes, as well as later in her life when she joins women’s societies created to aid the less fortunate. This is also evident in her England om hösten år 1851, as will be explained in the chapter on gender and travel. Mary Wollstonecraft was brought up in a lower middle class family and she received

85 Ibid., 90. 86 Bremer, Life, Letters, and Posthumous Works, 92. 87 Ibid., 97. 88 Ibid., 92-93. 21 very little formal education, most of her knowledge is self-taught and taught by her friends Mr. Clare and Fanny Blood. Instead of traveling abroad from an early age, Mary traveled throughout England quite often as her father uprooted their family every time he decided on getting a new job or thinking it was financially profitable to move. Mary did not travel abroad until much later, first when she went to Lisbon to care for her sick friend, then to Ireland to work as a governess, and later visiting and living in and near Paris and traveling through Scandinavia. She never traveled outside of Europe. Like Fredrika, Mary also cared for the sick and less fortunate (though it does not seem she means the poor but instead the disenfranchised and women as they had little to no legal rights). Her biography also indicates that Mary was an independent spirit like Fredrika, as she wanted to leave her home without being married or having a job (though she did not leave until she did have a job), she liberated her sister from a bad marriage, opened her own school, had affairs at a time when women were expected to marry, and she wrote openly on politics and gender equality.

What stands out in the biographies of Fredrika Bremer and Mary Wollstonecraft is that both women searched for intellectual development and received some form of education, Bremer a well-rounded education from different masters and Wollstonecraft educating herself. Both women also opened a school with their sisters (Bremer with her mother as well) and both schools did not last. Bremer and Wollstonecraft both cared for sick friends and family and even traveled to be with them – Bremer to Scania and Wollstonecraft to Portugal, and both were critical independent thinkers, what could now be considered outspoken feminism, who believed that all women should have the same access to education as men.

22

Chapter 2 Descriptions of Landscape: the Picturesque and the Sublime

An analysis of the picturesque and the sublime as they can be identified in the works by Mary Wollstonecraft and Fredrika Bremer will be the main focus of this chapter. The description of landscape is considered an integral part of travel writing. They are an especially prominent component in women’s travel writing. It is therefore my opinion that describing the landscape through the concepts of the picturesque and sublime require their own chapter. Women’s travel writing will be discussed in the fourth chapter, on gender.

In eighteenth century culture, landscape and nature became increasingly important. As literature shifted to the self and the world, there was also a move to more detailed descriptions of nature and landscape, some theories of which are the picturesque and the sublime.

The notion of the picturesque started out as a way of describing nature and landscape in literature, describing and presenting elements of the environment harmoniously, using words to paint a picture. With the picturesque, “the humble and simple aspects of nature are emphasized.”89 For women travel writers, the language of the picturesque allowed them to “assert that they were not organising the accounts of their travels at all but were simply amassing detail of the objects and sights which they had seen to give an overall impression of the country,”90 a strategy that was especially popular by women travel writers who did not want to organize their texts scientifically but still included “material about a country which might be read as authoritative.”91

While the picturesque is a more detailed way of describing nature, the sublime focuses “less on the landscape than on the emotions which it evokes in the narrator.”92 There are many interpretations of the sublime, one of which was written by Wollstonecraft’s contemporary Edmund Burke: “Whatever is fitted to excite the ideas of pain

89 Guglielmo Scaramellini, “The picturesque and the sublime in nature and the landscape: Writing and iconography in the romantic voyaging in the Alps,” GeoJournal 38, no. 1 (1996): 54. 90 Shirley Foster and Sara Mills, “Women and knowledge,” in An anthology of women’s travel writing, eds. Shirley Foster and Sara Mills (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 93. 91 Ibid., 93. 92 Ibid., 91. 23 and danger, […] or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling . . . When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible: but at certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are delightful, as we every day experience.”93 The sublime can also be described as “a moment of confrontation between a solitary individual ego and a landscape where these problems of conflict and otherness are resolved,”94 especially in women’s travel writing as it combines “a masculinist […] linguistic empowerment with a more “feminine” emotional response.”95

For the picturesque, nature itself is accentuated and the author’s emotions are secondary, while for the sublime the emotions are emphasized and nature on its own is less significant.96 The notion of the sublime is “crucial to discussion of women’s relation to space, since the sublime subject is one who locates himself or herself in a particular spatial and power framework,”97 and as gender is my main focus, I will therefore be analyzing this in this chapter.

The sublime can be interpreted in various ways, two of which I have illustrated above. I have chosen to interpret the sublime as follows: “a moment of confrontation between a solitary individual ego and a landscape where these problems of conflict and otherness are resolved,”98 because having read the works by Wollstonecraft and Bremer, this definition seems most applicable in both texts. I will first analyze the picturesque and the sublime in Wollstonecraft’s work before moving on to Bremer.

2.1 The Picturesque and Sublime in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters Mary Wollstonecraft employs the theories of the picturesque and sublime in her descriptions of nature and her emotions on multiple occasions throughout her letters. Even in the very first letter, she writes: “Rocks were piled on rocks, forming a suitable bulwark to the ocean. Come no further,

93 Edmund Burke, as quoted in: Scaramellini, “The picturesque and the sublime,” 52. 94 Foster and Mills, “Women and space” in An anthology of women’s travel writing, 176. 95 Ibid., 177. 96 Scaramellini, “The picturesque and the sublime,” 54. 97 Sara Mills, “Written on the landscape: Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark” in Romantic geographies: Discourses of travel 1775-1844, ed. Amanda Gilroy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 20. 98 Foster and Mills, “Women and space,” 176. 24

they emphatically said, turning their dark sides to the waves to augment the idle roar. The view was sterile: still little patches of earth, of the most exquisite verdure, enamelled with the sweetest wild flowers, seemed to promise the goats and a few straggling cows luxurious herbage. How silent and peaceful was the scene. I gazed around with rapture, and felt more of that spontaneous pleasure which gives credibility to our expectation of happiness, than I had for a long, long time before. I forgot the horrors I had witnessed in France, which had cast a gloom over all nature, and suffering the enthusiasm of my character, too often, gracious God! damped by the tears of disappointed affection, to be lighted up afresh, care took wing while simple fellow feeling expanded my heart.”99 In this passage, Wollstonecraft starts with a picturesque description of the landscape (and even says that the bay she sees is picturesque just before moving on to this description of the landscape),100 but then goes on to discuss her feelings, specifically a gladness to see such beauty that helped her overcome any negative sentiments she had of nature. Here, Wollstonecraft confronts her feelings in this landscape and resolves the problems she had.

Purely picturesque descriptions can also be found throughout Wollstonecraft’s text, an example of which is in her fifth letter: “The road was on the declivity of a rocky mountain, slightly covered with a mossy herbage and vagrant firs. At the bottom, a river, straggling amongst the recesses of stone, was hastening forward to the ocean and its grey rocks, of which we had a prospect on the left, whilst on the right it stole peacefully forward into the meadows, losing itself in a thickly-wooded rising ground. As we drew near, the loveliest banks of wild flowers variegated the prospect, and promised to exhale odours to add to the sweetness of the air, the purity of which you could almost see, alas! not smell, for the putrifying herrings, which they use as manure, after the oil has been extracted, spread over the patches of earth, claimed by cultivation, destroyed every other.”101 Here, Wollstonecraft describes a scene she observes while traveling and vividly paints a picture using words.

99 Mary Wollstonecraft, Letters written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, eds. Tone Brekke and Jon Mee (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), Letter I, 9-10. 100 Ibid., 9. 101 Ibid., Letter V, 27. 25

The theory of the picturesque popular with women travel writers is evident in the following passage: “As I wish to give you a general idea of this country, I shall continue in my desultory manner to make such observations and reflections as the circumstances draw forth, without losing time, by endeavouring to arrange them.”102 Here, Wollstonecraft uses the theory of the picturesque that women would not order their texts so that they did not have to include any scientific descriptions, but were still able to include authoritative material. Wollstonecraft even acknowledges that she is not organizing her text, fitting in perfectly with this theory. While not part of the picturesque or the sublime, Wollstonecraft also directly acknowledges that she is not in any way trying to create a national character of the places she visits: “I do not pretend to sketch a national character; but merely to note the present state of morals and manners, as I trace the progress of the world’s improvement”103 and yet comments on the way people dress and behave on multiple occasions and publishing this, thereby adding to the national character, which will be analyzed in the chapter on gender.

On another occasion, Wollstonecraft places herself in nature: “The beauties of nature appear to me now even more alluring than in my youth, because my intercourse with the world was formed, without vitiating my taste. But, with respect to the inhabitants of the country, my fancy has probably, when disgusted with artificial manners, solaced itself by joining the advantages of cultivation with the interesting sincerity of innocence, forgetting the lassitude that ignorance will naturally produce.”104 By placing herself in nature, and connecting the landscape she observes with what she knows from her youth, Wollstonecraft is also employing the theory of the sublime. While it seems that she is not necessarily displaying her emotions, this still fits in with the theory of the sublime as described above, because she is doing exactly that, resolving both conflict and otherness in a confrontation between herself and the landscape.

Wollstonecraft also describes nature as an all-encompassing object: “With what ineffable pleasure have I not gazed – and gazed again, losing my breath through my eyes – my very soul diffused itself in the scene – and, seeming to become all sensed, glided in the scarcely- agitated waves, melted in the freshening breeze, or, taking its flight with fairy wing, to the misty mountains which bounded the prospect, fancy tript over new lawns, more beautiful even

102 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter V, 25. 103 Ibid., Letter XIX, 108. 104 Ibid., Letter IV, 24. 26 than the lovely slopes on the winding shore before me.”105 In this passage, Wollstonecraft places herself in nature as nature surrounds her and almost becomes part of her as she observes it.

In her letter from Hamburg, Wollstonecraft writes: “Rocks aspiring towards the heavens, and, as it were, shutting out sorrow, surrounded me, whilst peace appeared to steal along the lake to calm my bosom, modulating the wind that agitated the neighbouring poplars.”106 Here, she employs the theory of the sublime again, with the large rocks as nature and her sorrow as emotion, indicating the confrontation between the self and the landscape.

As Wollstonecraft is using the landscape to convey her emotions, her physical journey also becomes an emotional one too.

2.2 Fredrika Bremer’s England and the Picturesque and Sublime Fredrika Bremer comes from the Stockholm archipelago where she lived on an estate in the countryside and wintered in the city. Traveling to England which was in the midst of an Industrial Revolution and coming from a mostly agricultural society, it is possible that Bremer saw England’s natural landscapes when traveling between cities, but has chosen not to include these in her articles. She instead chose to focus on cities and the man-made landscapes of the cities, unlike Mary Wollstonecraft who often described the natural landscapes she encountered. During her travels to England, Bremer visits the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace where most countries had sections on their countries. Bremer visits the Swedish one and notes that she missed “tavlor ur detta stilleben, genrebilder sådana som Tidemands, landskapsstycken sådana som Gudes! Men ej en tavla, ej en bild av Skandinaviens folkliv och pittoreska folkdräkter gav här utlänningen begrepp därom.”107 [transl.: paintings of the still life, genre images like those of Tidemand, landscape pieces like those of Gude! But not a painting, not an image of Scandinavian lives and the picturesque national costumes to give these foreigners an understanding of them.]108 While this does not describe nature as Bremer

105 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter VIII, 50. 106 Ibid., Letter XXIV, 129. 107 Fredrika Bremer, England om hösten år 1851, ed. Klara Johanson (Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & Söners förlag, 1922), 52. 108 Tidemand and Gude were popular Norwegian painters at that time. 27 sees it, it conveys what she is missing in an exhibition of the Scandinavian countries, and landscape is the main thing Bremer wants to see.

When Bremer describes the man-made landscape in the cities of England, such as parks and zoos, she is rather vivid: “Det var en skön eftermiddag. Huru behagligt att med den vänliga frun åka i öppen vagn ur den bullersamma staden åt den vackra förstaden Kentish Town, där de gröna fälten lyste i solen och träd och blomster vinkade i vinden; […] Skön är solen och värmande, men mera skön och värmande ännu är människokärlekens sol i klara människoögon.”109 [Transl.: It was a lovely afternoon. How pleasant to go with the friendly woman in open carriage away from the noisy city to the beautiful suburb of Kentish Town, where the green fields shone in the sun and trees and flowers waved in the wind. […] Beautiful is the sun and warming, but even more beautiful and warming is the sun of people’s love shining in people’s eyes.] In this quotation, Bremer describes a park and uses the picturesque way of describing the landscape, as she provides a detailed description of what she sees but barely express her emotions. Bremer also combines the picturesque and the sublime when she first discusses a landscape (though in a city, not in nature) in much detail before bringing her emotions into it: “Solen sken gladeliga när jag reste genom manufakturdistrikterna, såg deras klungor av städer och förstäder, deras rykande pelare och pyramider uppstigande överallt över de vida fälten – såg glödande eldsvalg öppna sig ur jorden, såsom vore den i brand – ett rikt och underligt pittoreskt skådespel, påminnande om eldsdyrkarna – forntidens och nutidens - och deras altaren. Men jag hörde barnens klagande rop från faktorierna, […] ropen från barnen, dessa små som föräldrars och fabrikanters vinningslystnad tvingade att offra liv och glädje och hälsa i maskinernas verkstäder, barnen som jagades upp ur sina sängar, […]den levande döden […] och de rika manufaktursdistrikterna med deras städer, deras eldpelare och pyramider syntes mig som ett ofantligt Molokstempel, där Englands mammonsdyrkare offrade även barnen i avgudens glödande armar”110 [transl.: The sun shone gladly when I traveled through the manufacturing districts, saw their clusters of cities and suburbs, their smoking pillars and pyramids rising over the wide fields everywhere – saw glowing fires opening from the earth, as if it was on fire – a rich and strangely picturesque play, reminiscent of fire-worshippers – from the olden and modern

109 Bremer, England, 139. 110 Ibid., 4-5. 28 times – and their altars. But I heard children’s moaning cry from the factories, […] the cry of children, these babies whose parents and manufacturers’ greed forced them to sacrifice life and happiness and health in the machine workshops, children who were chased out of their beds, […] the living dead […] and the rich manufacturing districts with their cities, their fire- pillars and pyramids seemed to me like giant Moloch temples, where England’s mammon worshippers sacrificed children into the glowing arms of the idol too]. While Bremer does not express her personal emotions directly, she does articulate in a poetic manner that she feels emotional when she hears the poor children working in the factory, an issue she cares about dearly. In this case, Bremer is employing the picturesque description of a city before moving on to using this description of the manufacturing district as a backdrop for the conflict between the beautiful and the ugliness of child labor in a way similar to the sublime. This quotation is therefore an example of both the picturesque and the sublime.

Describing her first visit to the Crystal Palace, Bremer uses the vocabulary of the picturesque too: “morgonen var skön, molnen togo vingar och flydde för den jagande västanvinden genom himmelsrymden. […] vinden strömmade genom Hyde Park fram mot Kristallpalatset,[…] och som nu skimrade i solen med alla dess hundrade flaggor viftande och vinkande i den friska morgonluften – en glad, uppfriskande syn!”111 [transl.: the morning was beautiful, the clouds took wings and fled from the chasing west winds through the sky’s space. […] the wind flowed through Hyde Park onwards against the Crystal Palace, […] and which now glimmered in the sun with all the hundreds of flags waving and flying in the fresh morning air – a happy, refreshing sight!]. Bremer here describes her observations on the landscape surrounding the Crystal Palace in much detail.

As mentioned, Bremer is visiting cities and the nature she encounters there is mostly seen in parks and zoos. When describing the enclosure of some of the animals she encounters in the zoo, Bremer uses much detail: “Örnarna sutto på klippor, byggda i en rad under ett högt, skirt valv av ståltråd, en inrättning som syntes mig förträfflig och som jag hoppas synes dem så, ifall de kunna glömma att de äro fångar. De kunna ändå här sprida ut sina stora vingar, se den fria rymden och solen och bygga bo på klippan.”112 [Transl.: The eagles sat on the cliffs, built in a row under the high, sheer arch of steel wires, an institution that seemed marvelous to me

111 Bremer, England, 47. 112 Ibid., 99. 29 and I hoped seeing them like this, that they could forget that they are prisoners. They can still spread their large wings here, see the free space and the sun and build a nest on the cliffs.] Like in the passage describing child labor in the landscape of the factories, Bremer here sees a confrontation between the landscape and in this case, her thoughts on animals as prisoners. She resolves this by mentioning that the eagles still have enough room to live and fly in their aesthetically pleasing enclosure, thereby using the theory of the sublime.

Bremer occasionally uses the sun to emphasize her gladness and positive emotions: “Med glatt hjärta skildes jag vid denna anstalt, över vilken höstdagens grannaste aftonsol tycktes lysa välsignelse.”113 [Transl.: With a happy heart I separated from this institution, over which the autumn day’s neighboring evening sun seemed to shine a blessing.] While this is not necessarily describing nature or landscape, the sun is a natural phenomenon and using that to express emotion therefore fits in with the theory of the sublime.

2.3 Conclusion Describing the landscape is a big part of women’s travel writing, as it allows women to express their emotions on paper, which seem to be an important aspect of their work (chapter four on gender will expand on this subject). Both the notions of the picturesque and the sublime which are used to describe landscape are prevalent in the texts by Wollstonecraft and Bremer. In her England comprised of the newspaper articles she wrote, Bremer focuses on the man-made landscapes in cities, such as skylines and parks, likely because growing up in Sweden surrounded by the impressive landscapes Wollstonecraft describes, the British natural scenery is not as remarkable while the man-made city landscape of industrial cities is. Though Bremer describes man-made landscape instead of natural landscape, she also still writes in a way that fit in with the theories of the sublime and the picturesque. Wollstonecraft does describe natural landscape in most of her letters, as Scandinavia is full of it. She has even seen so much beautiful or impressive natural landscape that when sailing into Dover, she writes “at the sight of the Dover cliffs, I wondered how any body could term them grand; they appear so insignificant to me, after those I had seen in Sweden and Norway.”114 In her work, Wollstonecraft writes passages that fit both the picturesque, more descriptive, images and the sublime, with her inner thoughts confronting the landscape.

113 Bremer, England, 144. 114 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter XXV, 130. 30

Mary Wollstonecraft and Fredrika Bremer are two different people, writing in two different times, and with two different objectives of writing (one as letters to a loved one and the other as articles for a newspaper), both writers dominantly used the same elements of the picturesque and the sublime in their texts.

31

Chapter 3 Center-Periphery

In this chapter, I will analyze the different centers and peripheries that can be seen in the works of Fredrika Bremer and Mary Wollstonecraft, and discuss the perceived feelings of superiority and power structures that can be associated with this concept. The analysis of the center-periphery is important to the main research question of the role of gender in the works by Wollstonecraft and Bremer, because depending on the context it can be a shared “experience of marginalization”115 by both authors because as women in a patriarchal society. This chapter aims to find out whether Wollstonecraft or Bremer encounter this center- periphery divide in such a way, or if they contribute to it in another context. The term center-periphery in imagology is the divide between the center where power presides both geographically and socially, for instance where parliaments, universities, publishing houses or theaters are located. The periphery is the very outskirt of the center, far removed from these places of power. The center and periphery can vary depending on the context, for instance, if the capital city of a country is the center, the periphery would be a provincial area near the border of that country. The periphery could also be any area that is poorer than the center, and can therefore even exist within cities. There can also be multiple centers and peripheries within a country if there are multiple places that house power and multiple places that are comparatively underdeveloped. More centralized countries often have a single center that dominate other, smaller, centers, while states that more recently became centralized usually have multiple, more equal centers. In some cases, like in the United Kingdom, the whole province of England is the center that dominates over the rest of Great Britain as a sort of “internal colonialism.”116 Because the center-periphery divide is based on power and can be applied both geographically and socially, it is dependent on the context in which it is used. There can be an “experience of marginalization” shared by those in both the peripheries of the developed Western world, as well as the underdeveloped world, by women in a male-dominated or patriarchal society, or by cultural, ethnic or racial minorities in all societies.117 The center-periphery works on a European level as well, and with both Fredrika Bremer and Mary Wollstonecraft coming from different centers (Stockholm and London), visiting peripheries and regional centers, as well as being women in patriarchal societies, this

115 Joep Leerssen, “Centre/Periphery” in Imagology, 279. 116 Ibid., 278-279. 117 Ibid., 279. 32 imagological concept applies to both them and their texts. The center-periphery divide also indicates that some regions and people from those regions can feel superior over others, and this is a topic that is familiar to travel writing too, where ‘Othering’ is often observed.

3.1 Center-Periphery in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters Though Mary Wollstonecraft traveled to Scandinavia in 1796, it is not known whether or not she was aware of Montesquieu’s 1748 Spirit of the Laws climate-theory and the behaviors he ascribed to cold and warm climates. She does comment on the people and their climate. She for instance notes that the Swedes are “sluggish” because of their long, harsh winters,118 Swedish women become “very fat” from a young age and those “in a cold climate, they are not remarkable for fine forms,”119 and comments on climate as being responsible for “the natural […] in the degree of vivacity or thoughtfulness, pleasure, or pain.”120 Wollstonecraft comments on climate on multiple occasions and combines it with the negative perception she has of those living in a cold climate. She even says that “the destruction, or gradual reduction, of their forests, will probably meliorate the climate; and their manners will naturally improve in the same ration as industry requires ingenuity.”121 These remarks show that Wollstonecraft connects the periphery she is visiting to the climate, and ascribes all bad behavior and appearance of the people with this climate. By doing this, she places herself in the center and reinforces the idea that England is the center and that it dominates over the peripheries, in this case Scandinavia. In his Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu states that he has seen the same opera performed in Italy and in England, and that both versions were remarkably different, a difference he believed was because Italy had a warm climate and England a cold one. Mary Wollstonecraft visits the theater in Copenhagen and notes that it is incredibly different from the theaters she visited in Paris. From the people to the performance itself, she was not impressed with Danish theater. The people in Denmark did not dress up to her standards: “neither the ladies nor the actresses displayed much fancy in their dress,”122 the play itself was childish and so were the Danes who laughed at the jokes: “the farce, termed ballat, was a kind of pantomime, the childish incidents of which were sufficient to shew the state of the dramatic

118 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter IV, 22. 119 Ibid., 23. 120 Ibid., Letter V, 33. 121 Ibid., Letter X, 60. 122 Ibid., Letter XX, 110. 33 art in Denmark, and the gross taste of the audience.”123 Though Montesquieu did not address clothing in his climate theory, it seems that the difference in Copenhagen and Parisian theater is similar to his experience of the English and Italian opera.124

The idea of dominance or superiority is prevalent in Wollstonecraft’s work, as she appears to believe that she, as a British woman, is superior to the people of Scandinavia she visits. Wollstonecraft also compares the behavior and habits of the Scandinavians to those of the French, possibly because they are among the only places she has visited and people she has observed. She compared the Danes and their theater to the French in the example above, and compares the Swedes to the French as well, mentioning that “The Swedes pique themselves on their politeness; but far from being the polish of a cultivated mind, it consist merely of tiresome forms and ceremonies. So far indeed from entering immediately into your character, and making you feel instantly at your ease, like the well-bred French, their over-acted civility is a continual restraint on all your actions.”125 She goes on to say that she thinks that “the peasantry the politest people of Sweden, who […] never think of being admired for their behaviour.”126 Wollstonecraft also appears to hold the peripheries of the places she visits in lower regard than the cities, she for instance comments that “the well-bred Swedes of the capital are formed on the ancient French model; and they in general speak that language; for they have a knack at acquiring languages, with tolerable fluency/ this may be reckoned an advantage in some respects; but it prevents the cultivation of their own, and any considerable advance in literary pursuits.”127 This comment indicates that while she does see the “well-bred Swedes of the capital” as more evolved than the Swedes in other parts of the country, they still do not live up to the superior French and possibly English, because they appear unable to advance their own language.

When visiting Copenhagen, a center, Wollstonecraft discusses her distaste of the city: “I had often heard the Danes, even those who had seen Paris and London, speak of Copenhagen with rapture. […] Still the utmost that can, or could ever, I believe, have been said in its praise, might be comprised in a few words. The streets are open, and many of the houses large; but I

123 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter XX, 110. 124 Baron de Montesquieu, “The cultural consequences of climate” (1748), 52. 125 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter II, 15. 126 Ibid., 15. 127 Ibid., Letter III. 20. 34 saw nothing to rouse the idea of elegance or grandeur, if I except the circus where the king and Prince Royal reside.”128 While she acknowledges that seeing the city shortly after a fire had ravaged it, she still believes that Copenhagen possesses nothing of the splendor she expects in a capital city. She even goes on to say that Christiania129 had much more “industry or taste” than Copenhagen, even though Copenhagen was the capital city of Denmark and Norway, mentioning that “the Danes are the people who have made the fewest sacrifices to the graces.”130

The feeling of superiority and inferiority is not limited to the people Wollstonecraft meets and the places she visits, she also believes it about people she has never met, more specifically, Queen Matilde and King Christian VII. Matilde was a princess and sister of the British King George III who was married to the Danish king. He was apparently mad and was not allowed to make decisions himself. Matilde was exiled for allegedly having an affair with the king’s personal physician who was in power at the time, and the liberal reforms the doctor and Matilde made were rather unpopular. Matilde died in exile at only 24 years old.131 From her letters, it appears Wollstonecraft was upset with Matilda’s situation, calling her “unfortunate Matilda” and “poor Matilda.”132 The manners of the Danish people Wollstonecraft has observed caused her to write “Poor Matilda! thou hast haunted me ever since my arrival; and the view I have had of the manners of the country, exciting my sympathy, has increased my respect for thy memory!”133 While it seems her thoughts on the Danes are negative from the moment she arrives, calling the men “domestic tyrants,”134 the women “simply notable housewives; without accomplishments, or any of the charms that adorn more advanced social life” 135 and “weak, indulgent mothers,”136 but they seem to become increasingly negative as Wollstonecraft goes on to discuss Matilda and the mad king, calling him a “puppet of a monarch,”137 and saying “this effigy of majesty is allowed to burn down to the socket, whilst the hapless Matilda was hurried into an untimely grave.”138

128 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter XVIII, 100. 129 Christiania is now Oslo, Norway. 130 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter XVIII, 101. 131 Tone Brekke and Jon Mee, “Introduction” in Letters written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Mary Wollstonecraft, xxii. 132 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter XVIII, 102. 133 Ibid., 102. 134 Ibid., 101. 135 Ibid., 102. 136 Ibid., 102. 137 Ibid., 103. 138 Ibid., 103. 35

Wollstonecraft’s opinion of the Danes seems to lower even more when she witnesses the scene of an execution: “What a spectacle for humanity!”139 After this execution, Wollstonecraft hears that two people had come by to drink the blood of the diseased, as a remedy for a disease. Wollstonecraft called this “a horrible violation of nature,”140 and when a lady asked her how she knew that it was not a cure, she writes that she did not respond because this person was “the slave of such a gross prejudice.”141 This again shows that Wollstonecraft believes that she is superior, and the Danes who visit executions and believe that drinking blood could be a remedy are inferior. What is interesting to note, however, is that Wollstonecraft witnessed an execution in Paris as well, and while she was against it then too, she does not hold this against them but still holds the French in high regard, and sees them as superior to the Scandinavians as well.

Although Wollstonecraft clearly sees the English and French centers as superior over the Scandinavian peripheries, she does mention one aspect in which both centers and peripheries are inferior: “The treatment of servants in most countries, I grant, is very unjust; and in England, that boasted land of freedom, it is often extremely tyrannical. I have frequently, with indignation, heard gentlemen declare that they would never allow a servant to answer them; and ladies of the most exquisite sensibility, […] have in my presence forgot that their attendants had human feelings, as well as forms.”142 This discussion follows remarks on how Swedes treat their servants, which according to Wollstonecraft is so bad that she writes: “they are not termed slaves; yet a man may strike a man with impunity because he pays him wages.”143

For Wollstonecraft, the center-periphery divide appears to be focused mostly on the idea that England is the center and therefore they are superior to others. While Scandinavia is not part of Great Britain and the “internal colonialism” does not apply, Wollstonecraft still treats the people of this Scandinavian periphery as if they are inferior.

139 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter XIX, 104. 140 Ibid., 105. 141 Ibid., 105. 142 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter II, 18. 143 Ibid., 17. 36

3.2 Center-Periphery in Fredrika Bremer’s England In her England om hösten år 1851, Fredrika Bremer begins by painting the picture that she has of England so far, opening her book by mentioning that she visited England two years ago, in the fall of 1849, when the country was infested with cholera. The sky was covered with a thick, storm-like air, there were hearses driving through the streets, and cities were deserted as people left them because of the cholera. She saw shadowy figures sneaking through the streets dressed in black, almost more like ghosts than creatures of flesh and blood. Bremer mentions that she had never before seen such human suffering like she did then in London and Hull. Bremer compared this misery to that which she saw at home in Stockholm, where the poor and suffering were open and unashamed of their misery, which is easier for her to ignore because they did this to themselves. The misery in England in 1849 was more difficult as those affected still tried to look decent: “dessa männer med rockar och hattar borstade tills luggen var avsliten, dessa bleka kvinnor i knappa, urtvättade men dock snygga kläder”144 [Transl.: these men with long coats and hats brushed until the hair was worn off, these pale women in meager, overwashed but pretty clothes]. The picture of England during her previous travel is clearly incredibly negative because the country was disease-ridden and deserted, but this introduction was necessary as she then writes about visiting two years later, in the fall of 1851, and paints a completely opposing picture. Though the weather was the worst she had seen outside of the oceans, in society, life was better than ever before: “den var – jag förnam det med överraskning och glädje – den var Vårens” [Transl.: it was – I observed with surprise and joy – it was spring].145 The country had prospered with free trade, the price of bread was good, a freedom tree that was planted permeated into English life and she heard the leaves rustling in the free winds. The Crystal Palace had beautiful flowers in bloom, including a new one: a Cactus grandiflora, the likes of which the world had never seen.146 Bremer is incredibly positive about the manufacturing districts as well, saying that she heard from people of all classes: “välståndet var allmänt där, var i stigande.” [Transl.: prosperity was generally there, and increasing]. The negative image of the deserted cities with thick, stormy clouds and pale, poor people was completely gone.

144 Bremer, England, 4. 145 Ibid., 7. 146 Ibid., 7. 37

This whole passage indicates that Bremer was traveling to an area that would have been considered a center but had become a periphery because of the cholera-related desertion. When she came back in 1851, the area had become a center again. It also appears that Bremer did not have the sense of superiority that could be associated with coming from a center and visiting a periphery, but instead she saw the British poor as superior to the Swedish poor, as the Swedish poor were not ashamed of their situation whereas the British at least tried to make themselves look presentable.

It seems that Fredrika Bremer does not feel superior to the places or people she visits. It does appear, however, that she believes that the Americans are in many respects superior to the British. Just one example is mentioned when discussing schools: “Båda anstalterna äro lovvärda begynnelser på en bana där den yngsta av jordens stater – Förenta Staterna – gått långt framom moderlandet och alla Europas länder, nämligen beredandet av utvägar för Kvinnans intellektuella utveckling.”147 [Transl.: Both institutions are praiseworthy beginnings of a road where the youngest of the world’s states – the United States – went far beyond the mother country and all European countries, namely in preparing a means for women’s intellectual development.] Geographically and from a European perspective, the U.S. could be seen as a periphery, but to Bremer, in the context of education and especially women’s education, it is a center.

During her visit to the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace, Bremer remarks on a Swedish exhibition and instead of feeling proud, she mentions the shame Swedes felt seeing this: “då var lilla David visade sig på det stora folk-mötet i sina herdakläder, i all oskuld och déshabillé; och svenskarna i London som sågo det förskräcktes och skämdes svårliga och höllo sig i galleriet så långt som möjligt ifrån den svenska avdelningen, på det att ingen måtte där kalla på dem och fråga: >Är detta allt som ni ha att visa?>”148 [Transl: There was little David showing himself to the large crowds in his shepard’s clothes, in all innocence and state of undress; and Swedes in London who saw it were frightened and very ashamed and stayed as far as possible from the Swedish section, so that no one could call on them and ask: >Is this all you had to show?>]149 While this indicates that most Swedes were embarrassed by this display of Sweden, as this portrayal seems to reinforce the idea that Sweden is a periphery,

147 Bremer, England, 145. 148 Ibid., 48. 149 Bremer called Sweden ‘little David’ as it was next to the large Russian she called ‘Goliath.’ 38 especially when contrasted to the impressive Russian center, Bremer goes on to discuss that it is actually positive: while it may not look like much in this exhibition with all the grandeur, the Swedes have had larger, and more inclusive of all Swedish regions, exhibitions in Stockholm. If Sweden had correctly understood the meaning of the Great Exhibition it could have been respected more, but “även nu framställde Sverge, i små dimensioner, en vacker och innehållsrik individualitet, och vida mera så än jätten mitt över.”150 [Transl.: Even now Sweden produced, in small dimensions, a beautiful and comprehensive individuality, and much more so than the giant right across.]151 This indicates that while some Swedes were ashamed, and Sweden had clearly not understood the purpose of Great Exhibition, Bremer is still proud of the country’s exposition. Even when juxtaposing the Swedish modest, peripheral, display to the splendor of the Russian central display, Bremer sees beauty in the simplicity.

Bremer does mention feeling a sense of superiority when it comes to Swedish parks in comparison to Windsor park, which “föreföll mig stor och rik på sköna träd, men saknande de svenska kungspakernas romantiska skönhet, pittoreska karaktär, som Djurgården, Haga, Rosersberg.”152 [Transl.: appeared to me large and rich in beautiful trees, but missed the Swedish royal parks’ romantic beauty, picturesque character, like Djurgården, Haga, Rosersberg]. The beauty of the Swedish parks and the superiority Bremer feels therefore makes them a center, while the British, inferior parks are the periphery.

When visiting Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s hometown – a town that is not a powerful center like London, but a cultural one because of the connection to the great Shakespeare – Bremer sees “Jenny Lind-drops,”153 small caramels bearing the name of a Swedish singer, and Bremer said it “smakade mig som svenska särdeles väl att se den svenska sångerinnans vackra rykte erkänt uti Shakespeares stad och ha ett rum bredvid hans.”154 [Transl.: pleased me as a Swede especially, to see the Swedish singer’s beautiful reputation acknowledged in Shakespeare’s town and have a room next to his]. This quote indicates that Bremer sees the English Shakespeare as a superior individual and is therefore proud to have a Swedish person mentioned in the same breath as him, as this seems to make the Swede superior too.

150 Bremer, England, 49. 151 With ‘the giant right across,’ Bremer means Russia and ‘Goliath.’ 152 Bremer, England, 161-162. 153 Ibid., 39. 154 Ibid., 39. 39

3.3 Conclusion The center-periphery is a divide between the powerful center and the place most removed from that power, the periphery. Because the divide is in power, there can be multiple centers and multiple peripheries, depending on the context. The center is often associated with superiority or dominance over the inferior peripheries. For Mary Wollstonecraft, that superiority is evident in most of what she describes of the countries she visited. She believes the people are inferior and their cities are as well. She does, however, consider the landscape superior, as has been analyzed in the chapter on the picturesque and the sublime. Fredrika Bremer does not have that same sense of superiority, at least not with the Swedes. Bremer does see Americans as superior to the English in the context of women’s education. In other instances, she sees something that could be considered superior, such as the Russian section of the Great Exhibition which is right across from the Swedish section, that some considered an embarrassment, Bremer sees that Swedish section as superior in its own way. Bremer also believes that Swedish royal parks are superior to English ones.

It seems that while in some instances Mary Wollstonecraft, and Fredrika Bremer to some extent as well, felt superior to the people of the countries they visited, it is also evident that their care for others stopped them from feeling superior, because it seems they wanted to comment on their situation so people would understand how bad it truly was.

40

Chapter 4 Gender and Travel

In order to answer my main research question, ‘what is the role of gender in the works of Mary Wollstonecraft and Fredrika Bremer?’ I have so far looked at different imagological and travel writing theories. The term gender itself can be found in the field of imagology and indirectly in travel writing, under women’s travel writing. Gender holds many different definitions. In imagological research, gender “concerns someone’s (self-)perception as being male or female and the images of masculinity and femininity that go with it.”155 For feminists, gender concerns the social relations among men and women as well as the meaning of femininity and masculinity. The historical stereotypical gender division is that of a strong, rational man who operates in the public sphere and a weak, emotional woman who operates in the private sphere.156 This divide between men and women is also prevalent in eighteenth century literature, with women being portrayed as “a woman whose value resided chiefly in her femaleness rather than in traditional signs of status, a woman who possessed psychological depth rather than a physically attractive surface.”157 Seventeenth and eighteenth century advice books aimed at women, like George Saville’s Advice to a Daughter (1688), or Thomas Gisborne’s Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex (1799), offered instruction on how to act as a woman in different stages of life, from a daughter to a widow. In all these stages of life, women were associated with domestic life and were supposed to only want to take care of a husband and children, they were “figured as the moral anchors of the private domestic space,”158 while men lived and worked in the public space. While the idea of women belonging in the private, domestic space and men in the public space is prevalent in novels and is mostly applied there, the advice books illustrate that such was the expected behavior for women in society and that these ideas were deeply rooted in society. This division was even recorded in the laws at the time: by marrying in the eighteenth century, husband and wife would become one person for the law, which meant that “the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband.”159 A woman could not undertake

155 Ginette Verstraete, “Gender” in Imagology, 328-329. 156 Ibid., 329. 157 Nancy Armstrong, as quoted in: Elizabeth Johnston, ““Deadly Snares”: Female Rivalry, Gender Ideology, and Eighteenth-Century Women Writers,” Studies in the Literary Imagination 47, no. 2 (Fall 2014): 3. http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A438618755/LitRC?u=amst&sid=LitRC&xid=31505a39. 158 Johnston, “Deadly Snares,” 3. 159 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book I (1766), 430. Gale, Eighteenth Century Collections Online. 41 any action without her husband or his consent, which explains why the man would be accepted in the public sphere while the woman was supposed to remain in the private. The only woman exempt to these rules would be a queen reigning in her own right or a queen consort, for they were seen as “a single, not as a married woman” for the law.160

The divide between the public and private spheres exists in authors in literature too. Writing was considered part of the public sphere, and women were therefore encouraged not to write in the public sphere but instead write letters and diaries as those forms of writing, just as women, belonged in the private sphere.161

Women travel writers, or women writers in general, may have had different access to education than their male counterparts, or possibly even a lack of education, but that did not discourage them from writing. Many women writers published their diaries, because this fits in between the public and the private spheres: it restricts women’s writing while simultaneously providing them a voice during a time in which this that was frowned upon.162

In travel writing, works written by men are generally considered the standard, and those works written by men are therefore simply called ‘travel writing’, a non-gendered term. The interest in women’s travel writing is relatively new and there are some who deem it “a necessarily different and implicitly subordinate sub-genre.”163 There are similarities with men’s writing, just as there are similarities between texts written by women.164 In travel writing, the act of writing was not necessarily different for women than men, but because of eighteenth century social conventions, women’s works of travel writing often included descriptions of daily life and social connections. Texts by women travel writers were often chronologically ordered by the days in which the journey was divided. Travel journals were therefore frequently written in diary form.165 Because the assumption that travel texts by male and female travel writers were fundamentally different due to their gender is now recognized as only partially true, a better

160 Blackstone, Commentaries, 213. 161 Sara Mills, Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and Colonialism (London: Routledge, 1993), 40. 162 Linda Anderson, as mentioned in: Mills, Discourses of Difference, 40-41. 163 Shirley Foster and Sara Mills, “Introduction,” in An anthology of women’s travel writing, 5. 164 Ibid. 165 Angela Jones, “Romantic women travel writers and the representation of everyday experience,” Women’s Studies 26, no. 5: Women and Travel (1997): 498-499. https://doi.org/10.1080/00497878.1997.9979181. 42 or more appropriate distinction in authors and their works of travel writing in addition to gender would be “race, age, class and financial position, education, political ideals and historical period.”166 As explained above, women were supposed to remain in the private sphere while men usually lived and worked in the public sphere.167 The differences between men and women on that social level and the cultural constraints placed upon women may account for the perceived difference in travel writing between them. The themes that are commonly associated with women’s travel writing – epistolary mode (letter form),168 focusing on the inner journey or the ‘confessional’, including remarks on clothes and whether they are appropriate, or by including remarks on behavior and whether or not that fits in with the norms of the author’s country and class.169 Observations on food preparation and consumption,170 as well as the notion of the picturesque, interest in local practices and escaping from authority – are all subjects that were common in the literature of the Romantic era that lasted from the late eighteenth century to the nineteenth century. Women began using these aspects, especially the inner journey, in reaction to the “authoritative posture” that male traveler writers often used. Western women traveler writers used travel not necessarily to learn about the world, but as a way to set the scene for their personal thoughts and feelings.171 This is especially evident in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters. On multiple occasions, she used the landscape to talk about her feelings. This topic has been explored further in the chapter on the picturesque and the sublime.

Male and female authors writing during the Romantic period were often politically aware and active, which seems to clash with the idea of sensibility, with the focus being on the inner self. However, Romantic authors often managed to combine the two themes in their texts.172

4.1 The Political and the Self In this section I will analyze the works of Mary Wollstonecraft and Fredrika Bremer according to the gender subjects described above. I will focus on the theme of combining the political and the inner self, used by both male and female authors in the Romantic period here.

166 Carl Thompson, “Journeys to Authority: Reassessing Women’s Early Travel Writing, 1763-1862,” Women’s Writing 24, no. 2 (2017): 132. https://doi.org/10.1080/09699082.2016.1207915. 167 Foster and Mills, “Women and Space,” 173. 168 Thompson, “Journeys to Authority,” 133. 169 Mills, Discourses of Difference, 72. 170 Foster and Mills, “Women and Knowledge,” 95. 171 Mulligan, “Women’s travel writing,” 324. 172 Ibid., 325. 43

Combining the political with the inner self is evident in both Mary Wollstonecraft’s and Fredrika Bremer’s texts. While visiting Copenhagen, Wollstonecraft mentions seeing people walking away from a public execution. Similar to what she witnessed in Paris when she lived there, she is again disgusted that these people would watch executions for amusement and goes on to discuss how the death sentence is not a deterrent for criminals: “I have always been of opinion that allowing actors to die, in the presence of the audience, has an immoral tendency; but trifling when compared with the ferocity acquired by viewing the reality as a show; for it seems to me, that in all countries the common people go to executions to see how the poor wretch plays his part, rather than to commiserate his fate much less to think of the breach of morality which has brought him to such a deplorable end. Consequently executions,[…] have, I am persuaded, a quite contrary effect, by hardening the heart they ought to terrify. Besides, the fear of an ignominious death, I believe, never deterred any one from the commission of a crime; […] Executions, however, occur very rarely at Copenhagen […]. The malefactor, who died this morning, would not, probably, have been punished with death at any other period; but an incendiary excites universal execration; and as the greater part of the inhabitants are still distressed by the late conflagration, an example was thought absolutely necessary; though, from what I can gather, the fire was accidental.”173 In this example, Wollstonecraft combines her inner thoughts with the political. The extract also shows that she not only has her political views, she is aware of the current political climate in Denmark. Politics are part of the public sphere, so her awareness indicates that she has transcended the private sphere in this respect as well. Fredrika Bremer discusses politics in her text as well. For example, she discusses free trade on multiple occasions, saying that it is not everything,174 but that it brought freedom and light, it brought “en period av mycken drift och välgång. Arbete var fullt upp, löner goda, livsmedel för got pris. Även här hade man >ragged schools> med flera inrättningar till upphjälpande av de fattiga arbetsklassernas villkor.”175 [transl.: a period of much work opportunity and prosperity. Work was up, pay was good, food had a good price. Even here one had >ragged schools> with many institutions to help the poor conditions of the working class]. Because she visits mostly the industrial areas of England, Bremer encounters poverty

173 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter XIX, 104-105. 174 Bremer, England, 8. 175 Ibid., 18. 44 and poor conditions quite often, and this is a recurring topic in her travel account as well. For instance when discussing articles about poverty in London published by a major newspaper, she recounts the response by the people of London: “Här var mera. Här var sanningen, verkligheten själv, avslöjad av en sannfärdig Kristen och talande i sanningens övertygande språk. […] Det var ovedersägligt bevist genom här anförda fakta att tusentals kvinnor funnos i London (och i andra Englands stora städer) som icke kunde leva av sitt arbete, icke kunde leva alls utan genom – förnedring. Det var ovedersägligen bevist likaledes att tusentals män funnos där som icke kunde underhålla sig och de sina med ärlig förtjänst; det blev bevisat att vissa yrken och korporationer, förr rika och blomstrande, med vart år gått mera nedåt samt att det tillstånd i England som inom arbetsklasserna förde de bärgade till fattigdom och de fattiga till brottslighet och slutligen till yttersa elände var i tilltagande inom England och hade sin grund i det närvarande samhällets organisation.”176 [Transl.: Here was more. Here was the truth, reality itself, uncovered by a true Christian and spoken in true convincing language. […]It was absolutely proven by the fact that thousands of women found in London (and in other major English cities) that could not live from their work, could not live at all through – humiliation. It was absolutely proven that equally thousands of men found there could not support themselves and their families with honest earnings; it was proven that some professions and corporations, previously rich and flourishing, going down more each year and that the situation in England in the working class brought salvation to poverty and the poor to crime and finally to the utmost misery that was rising in England and had its cause in the present societal organization].

It seems that for Fredrika Bremer, the most important topic in her work is care for the poor and less fortunate. She visits several factories and comments on whether the people look well,177 she discusses the institutions that are in place to take care of the poor, she even mentions the way aged governesses are treated, likely of interest to her because she had governesses growing up for whom she cared dearly: “jag hade hört att personer av talang, rang och förmögenhet hade i England förenat sig om att upprätta ett hem åt åldriga och fattiga guvernanter för att bereda dem en sorgfri och ljus levnadsafton.”178 [Transl.: I had heard that people of talent, rank and fortune had united in England to establish a home for elderly and

176 Bremer, England, 120-121. 177 Ibid., 19. 178 Ibid., 138. 45 poor governesses to prepare for them a light and free from worry final stage of life]. An especially interesting comment Bremer makes when discussing these institutions for the elderly governesses is the emphasis on men being foremost patrons: “Bland anstaltens främsta befordrare såg jag namnen av – männer. Männer hade varit de gamla ensamma fruntimrens främsta vänner och beskyddare!”179 [Transl.: Among the institution’s main patrons I saw names of – men. Men had been the old lonely women’s foremost friends and protectors!] This observation shows that though Bremer clearly believed in charity and the love people had for one another – charity and love had the form of a woman for her180 – she was clearly surprised and perhaps even impressed that it had been mainly men who stepped up for these aging women. In a footnote for this topic, Bremer writes that she wishes Sweden had such institutions, and that if they had, she would not be surprised if Swedish men would be among the main patrons for them.181 Such a comment shows her prejudice towards English men as either not being charitable or not caring for women.

4.2 Feminine Themes In this section I will focus on the analysis of the feminine themes associated with travel writing in Letters and England. I will begin by discussing the extreme detail that was often used to describe scenes, and will then analyze the ‘confessional’ remarks on food, clothes, and behavior as associated with women’s travel writing.

Though these subjects associated with women’s travel writing were considered separate from men’s travel writing, they seem to have originated or at least been popularized in the Romantic period, and at that time, men were using a similar discourse. However, because writing, and especially travel writing, had been dominated by men who ‘feminized’ the landscape, women still had to differentiate themselves from their male counterparts. Women also had to put in a greater effort to convince their readers that they were writing the truth, for instance by “taking pains to describe scenes realistically, often supplementing their accounts with sketches,” while the men’s writing seemed to simply be accepted as truth.182 One such example can be found in Fredrika Bremer’s work: when describing the ‘Prince’s Park’, Bremer recounts it in the utmost detail:

179 Bremer, England, 143. 180 Ibid., 9. 181 Ibid., 143. 182 Mulligan, “Women’s travel writing,” 327. 46

“Här, nära deras hus, såg jag även en av dessa engelska parker, vilkas gröna, oförtrampliga gräsvall och klasor av buskväxter och blommor ge ett så egendomligt och så intagande behag åt Englands landskap. Därtill en å-likt buktande damm, svanor, grupper av vackra barn och fruntimmer matande dem vid stränderna, sång av fåglar överallt bland buskarna, på avstånd palatser och vackra lanthus - och allt så färdigt och prydligt, vackert och fulländat, såsom fanns intet skräp, inga trasor och trashankar i världen.”183 [Transl.: Here, close to their house, I also saw one of these English parks, whose green, untouched lawns and growing bushes and flowers give such a peculiar and such a captivating charm to England’s landscape. In addition, an uneven, protruding pond, swans, groups of beautiful children and women feeding them by the beaches, the singing of birds everywhere between the bushes, at a distance palaces and beautiful manor houses – and everything so finished and neat, beautiful and perfected, as if there was no such thing as trash, rags or beggars in the world]. Another example, though she does not describe scenes in quite as much detail, can be found in Mary Wollstonecraft’s work: she describes Gothenburg when she first arrives as “a clean airy town, and having been built by the Dutch, has canals running through each street, and in some of them there are rows of trees that would render it very pleasant were it not for the pavement, which is intolerably bad. There are several rich commercial houses, Scotch, French, and Swedish; but the Scotch, I believe, have been the most successful.”184

The typically feminine theme of the ‘confessional’, describing food, clothing, and behavior is especially evident in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters. In her second letter, she already describes in much detail the way food is prepared: “spices and sugar are put into every thing, even into the bread; and the only way I can account for their partiality to high-seasoned dishes, is the constant use of salted provisions. Necessity obliges them to lay up a store of dried fish, and salted meat, for the winter; and in summer, fresh meat and fish taste insipid after them.”185 In this same passage, Wollstonecraft goes on to mention that the Swedes drink a lot of spirits and that before they even eat their dinner, they “repair to a side-table, and to obtain an appetite, eat bread and butter, cheese, raw salmon, or anchovies, drinking a glass of

183 Bremer, England, 17. 184 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter II, 13. 185 Ibid., 14. 47

brandy. […] As the dinner advances […] dish after dish is changed, in endless rotation, and handed round with solemn pace to each guest.”186

Bremer does not mention food or eating habits quite as much or detailed. She mostly mentions food and eating as she observes it in the Crystal Palace: “Här såg man gubbe och gumma i fattiga kläder sitta och äta tillsammmans ur deras matkorg, gammal och fattig som de, här unga mödrar sitta och amma sina barn helt ogenerat i närheten av eleganta ladies och gentlemän, som trakterade sig met glasser, frukter eller andra förfriskningar, vilka rikeligen funnos att tillgå på stora uppduka bord eller skänkar utanför de vackra järngallerportarna”187 [Transl.: Here one saw an old man and woman in poor clothes sitting and eating together from their food basket, as old and poor as them, here young mothers sat and breastfed their children completely unashamed in proximity to elegant ladies and gentlemen, who treated themselves with ice cream, fruits and other refreshments, which were available in abundance on large set tables or buffets in front of the beautiful iron gates].

Clothes are an important subject in both texts. Bremer for instance discusses the clothes of the poor: “männer med rockar och hattar borstade tills luggen var avsliten”188 [translation: men with long coats and hats brushed until the hair had worn off] and describes what Queen Victoria is wearing when she sees her pass by: “Hon var klädd i en svart, tätt åtsittande riddräkt, en svart manshatt utan slöja eller prydnad”189 [Translation: she was dressed in black, tight looking riding clothes, a black man’s hat without veil or decoration]. Bremer even mentions the way the police is dressed: “kläda i tätt åtsittande, utmärkt väl skurna, svarta kläder, med ett prydligt matt silverbroderi på rock-kragen, svarta hattar och vita handskar.”190 [Transl.: dressed in tight looking, exquisitely well-cut, black clothes, with neat, matte silver stitching on their coat-collar, black hats and white gloves]. Wollstonecraft mentions clothes in less detail, she mostly remarks on whether she believes people are dressed well or tastefully: “taste has not yet taught them to make any but an ostentatious display of wealth,”191 “we were amused by observing the dress of the women,

186 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter II, 14. 187 Bremer, England, 60. 188 Ibid., 4. 189 Ibid., 166. 190 Ibid., 44. 191 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter XI, 71. 48 which was very grotesque and unwieldy,”192 and comments on the dress of the women visiting the theater in Copenhagen, as mentioned above.193

4.3 Fear of Traveling Alone? In 1835, 40 years after Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters written in Sweden, Norway and Denmark was published as well as decades and even centuries after numerous other works by female travel writers, an anonymous author wrote a book called Woman: As She Is and As She Should Be, in which they condemned women for becoming travel writers, saying they believed it was “manifestly absurd” and that women cannot do “literary justice to a tour” because of “delicacy – not to speak of other obvious inconveniences.”194 Such a counter reaction to women’s writing, especially since it came after many such works had already been published, shows that people were threatened by women travelers and travel writers, or possibly believed that these women were threatening the status quo. The inconveniences the anonymous author may be alluding to are introduced in Mary Wollstonecraft’s very first letter, when she writes: “though Marguerite’s respect for me could hardly keep her from expressing the fear, strongly marked on her countenance, which my putting ourselves into the power of a strange man excited. He pointed out his cottage; and, drawing near to it, I was not sorry to see a female figure, though I had not, like Marguerite, been thinking of robberies, murders, or the other evil which instantly, as the sailors would have said, runs foul of a woman’s imagination.”195 Though she says she had not thought of the evils her maid had, Wollstonecraft mentioning them indicates that she agrees that it could be dangerous for a woman traveling alone. It appears that this ‘evil’ is a fear of sexual attack, which is a part of women’s daily experience, and not writing about it in their travel books makes it more noticeable. Especially in the nineteenth century, sexual attack was a taboo, and it was therefore not mentioned. Wollstonecraft insinuating it – at the end of the eighteenth century – indicates that she is not afraid to step out of the societal norms expected of women. Another woman traveler in 1893 writes that she stopped a possible sexual attack by picking up a large rock and telling the men threatening her “In good English to ‘be off,’” not swearing for that “would have been unladylike.”196 She does not directly mention the fear of sexual attack either, simply that she

192 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter XXII, 121. 193 Ibid., Letter XX, 110. 194 Thompson, “Journeys to Authority,” 133. 195 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter I, 8. 196 Marianne North, as quoted in: “Women and space,” 174. 49 avoided it. Fear of sounding improper or being blamed for such an attack could also be reasons that women travel writers decided to leave such remarks out of their texts.197 These two reasons are also mentioned by Wollstonecraft in that same letter when she recounts that the sailors believe “the other evil […] runs foul of a woman’s imagination.”198 Remarks such as this in Wollstonecraft’s Letters cannot be found in Bremer’s England. She does, however, speak of danger in the physical context rather than a sexual one: she mentions being terribly afraid of being “ihjälklämd” 199 [transl.: crushed to death] by the enormous crowd when visiting the Crystal Palace. She was pushed against “balustraden och hållande mig mot en pelare, kunde jag ej röra mig ur fläcken, men jämt och nätt andas ännu […] Men just som jag rätt till fullo förnam allt det ohyggliga av detta ögonblick, sade till mig min vänliga följeslagarinna: >Var ej rädd! Polisen är där! Polisen! Allt blir snart bra!>”200 [Transl.: the banister and held myself against a pillar, could not even budge, but could barely even breathe […] But just as I was afraid of fully observing all the horrors of this moment, my kind companion said to me: >Do not be scared! The police is there! The police! All will be well soon!>].

4.4 Conclusion In the eighteenth century women were expected to remain in the private sphere of the home while men would be in the public sphere. Writing was considered part of the public sphere and women (travel) writers had to find a way to write and be published. They often adopted themes that would be considered feminine, such as discussing the inner self or reflecting it on the outside world, for instance by remarking on food, clothes, or behavior. Another subject that can often be found in the literature from that time written by both men and women is a combination of the political and the inner self. Fredrika Bremer and Mary Wollstonecraft make use of these themes in their analyzed works as well.

While gender should not be a defining characteristic that separates men’s and women’s travel writing while other distinctions are left out, historically, the distinction makes sense since women had to differentiate themselves from men to be accepted as writers, especially travel writers. By putting in the effort of writing extremely detailed descriptions of the surroundings

197 Foster and Mills, “Women and space,” 173-174. 198 Wollstonecraft, Letters, Letter I, 8. 199 Bremer, England, 58. 200 Ibid., 58-59. 50 they observed, women travel writers worked on their credibility and that of their texts. Many female travel writers found a way to stay in the private sphere by writing in diary or letter form, an example of which is Mary Wollstonecraft. Fredrika Bremer, however, wrote her England om hösten år 1851 as a series of articles to be published in Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. She had also received a medal from the Swedish Academy for her first works, years before traveling to England. It therefore appears that Bremer had escaped the confinement to the private sphere.

51

Conclusion

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a woman’s role was traditionally limited to the household, in the private sphere, where they were expected to remain. Men, however, could live and work in the public sphere. Writing was considered part of the public sphere and because of the divide between men and women in the public and private spheres respectively, women writers and especially women travel writers had to find a way to write works that would be published. Letters or diaries were written in the private sphere, and therefore women writers often opted to use letter and diary form in their works. Women also frequently adopted themes that were considered ‘feminine,’ such as the ‘confessional,’ discussing the inner self and reflecting it on the outside world by for instance remarking on food, clothes or behavior. A subject that both men and women used in their travel writings, especially in the Romantic period, were a combination of the political and the inner self.

In women’s travel writing analyses, the focus on gender is often limited to the difference between travel texts written by men and women. In a time when women traveling, especially alone, and writing about their travels was still uncommon, I have chosen to analyze the broader role of gender. I have done so through analyzing Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark by British author Mary Wollstonecraft and England om hösten år 1851 by Swedish author Fredrika Bremer’s because both women became famous authors in their time and both women traveled alone, without male companions. In order to analyze the role of gender and the power structures that are inevitable with this concept in a patriarchal society, I have first looked at the personal lives of both authors to see what role gender and travel played.

Wollstonecraft and Bremer’s biographies demonstrate that these women had an incredibly different upbringing: Bremer was from an upper class family where she received a formal education, traveled abroad from a young age and saw much of Europe before even becoming an author. She also visited the United States. Wollstonecraft came from a lower middle class family and received little formal education, she instead was taught by friends and herself, and traveled throughout England but not abroad until much later in life. She never traveled outside of Europe. While having such different upbringings, it stands out that both women searched for

52 intellectual development, both opened a school with their sisters that did not last, both cared for sick friends and traveled to care for them, both had an independent spirit and were critical thinkers, which might now be considered as outspoken feminism, who believed that all men and women should have the same access to education.

The next subject I analyzed was description of the landscape through the concepts of the picturesque and the sublime. I believed that these theories of the picturesque and the sublime needed their own chapter because they are such an important part of women’s travel writing. They are therefore a necessary part of the analysis of gender. In Bremer’s England she focuses more on man-made landscapes in cities, such as skylines, parks and zoos while Wollstonecraft often describes the natural landscape in her Letters. Wollstonecraft and Bremer were also writing with different purposes: Wollstonecraft was writing letters to a loved one (though revised before publication), and Bremer was writing a series of articles for publication in Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. With emotions being an important part of describing landscape through the concept of the sublime, these differences in the audience of their writings could be why Bremer is more moderate with her emotional descriptions than Wollstonecraft. Despite these differences in objective of writing and the time in which they were writing, both authors dominantly used the same concepts of the picturesque and the sublime, even though they took a different approach to them. By using the picturesque and the sublime, writers put themselves in a power structure, by controlling their observations. Women in a patriarchal society did not have any power in society, so exercising control through their writing gave them power in a different way.

The third aspect I focused on was the theory of the center and periphery. There is a divide between the powerful centers and the peripheries far removed from that power, and the center is often associated with a dominance or superiority over the inferior peripheries. This also indicates that the authors could feel a sense of power and superiority over the people and places they visited. While Wollstonecraft, and Bremer to some extent as well, felt superior to the places and people they visited, their texts make it clear that their care for those less fortunate stopped them from feeling superior in all senses. They instead seemed to comment on the bad situations these people were in so that readers could understand them.

53

The fourth and final chapter was on gender in general, and I here analyzed the themes associated with women’s travel writing, such as discussion of food, clothes or behavior as part of the ‘confessional.’ I also discussed the combination of the political with the inner self, and a possible fear that comes from traveling alone – especially as a woman. The combination of the political with the inner self was particularly prevalent in both Wollstonecraft’s and Bremer’s works. As could be seen in their biographies, both authors had an independent mind and had strong ideas about politics, which are evident in their works too.

Gender should not be a limiting characteristic that separates male and female travel writing, but historically this distinction is logical. Women had to work harder to differentiate themselves from men by for instance writing detailed descriptions of their observations to add credibility, and women often had to adopt a different style of writing to be more easily accepted, by using the letter or diary form. Wollstonecraft uses the letter form in her writing as well, but Bremer wrote her England om hösten år 1851 as a series of articles for Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. It therefore seems that while Wollstonecraft remained in the private sphere with her Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Bremer had escaped the gender norm of the nineteenth century of confinement to the private sphere.

By analyzing these subjects and theories, I have come to the conclusion that while gender is not a direct part of their works in most instances, Wollstonecraft and Bremer adopt the feminine themes associated with women’s travel writing, and demonstrate that while women may not have had power in the patriarchal societies, they display their part in a power structure that comes from traveling to foreign places and writing about them.

54

Bibliography Arndt, Astrid. “North/South” in Imagology: The cultural construction and literary representations of national characters, A critical survey, edited by Manfred Beller and Joep Leerssen, 387-389. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007.

Baron de Montesquieu. “The cultural consequences of climate (1748)” in European Identity: A Historical Reader, Alex Drace-Francis, 51-56. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Beller, Manfred. “Perception, image, imagology” in Imagology: The cultural construction and literary representations of national characters, A critical survey, edited by Manfred Beller and Joep Leerssen, 3-16. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007.

Benson, Adolph B. “American appreciation of Fredrika Bremer.” Scandinavian Studies and Notes 8, no.1 (February 1924): 14-33. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40915142.

Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book I, 1766. Gale, Eighteenth Century Collections Online.

Blanton, Casey. “Narrating Self and Other: A Historical Overview” in Travel Writing. The self and the world, Casey Blanton, 1-29. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Blanton, Casey. “Preface” Travel Writing. The self and the world, Casey Blanton. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Bremer, Charlotte, ed. Life, Letters, and Posthumous Works of Fredrika Bremer. Translated by Fredr. Milow. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1868. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hwpvgp.

Bremer, Fredrika. England om hösten år 1851, edited by Klara Johanson. Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & Söners förlag, 1922.

Chew, William L. “What’s in a National Stereotype? An Introduction to Imagology at the Threshold of the 21st Century.” Language and Intercultural Communication 6, no. 3&4 (2006): 179-187. http://dx.doi.org/10.2167/laic246.0.

European Union. “Countries.” Accessed 28 June 2018. https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/countries_en#tab-0-1.

European Union. “The euro.” Accessed 28 June 2018. https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/money/euro_en#euro.

Foster, Shirley and Sara Mills. “Introduction” in An anthology of women’s travel writing, edited by Shirley Foster and Sara Mills, 1-12. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.

Foster, Shirley and Sara Mills. “Women and Knowledge” in An anthology of women’s travel writing, edited by Shirley Foster and Sara Mills, 88-98. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.

55

Foster, Shirley and Sara Mills. “Women and Space” in An anthology of women’s travel writing, edited by Shirley Foster and Sara Mills, 172-180. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.

Godwin, William. Memoirs of the author of A vindication of the rights of woman. London: J. Johnson, 1798. Gale, Eighteenth Century Collections Online.

Hooper, Glenn and Tim Youngs. “Introduction” in Perspectives on Travel Writing, edited by Glenn Hooper and Tim Youngs, 1-13. Aldsershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2004.

Johnson, Claudia L. “Introduction” in A Cambridge Companion to Mary Wollstonecraft, edited by Claudia L. Johnson, 1-6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. https://doi-org.proxy.uba.uva.nl:2443/10.1017/CCOL0521783437.

Johnston, Elizabeth. ‘“Deadly Snares”: Female Rivalry, Gender Ideology, and Eighteenth- Century Women Writers.” Studies in the Literary Imagination 47, no. 2 (Fall 2014): 1-21. http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A438618755/LitRC?u=amst&sid=LitRC&xid=315 05a39.

Jones, Angela. “Romantic women travel writers and the representation of everyday experience.” Women’s Studies 26, no. 5: Women and Travel (1997): 497-521. https://doi.org/10.1080/00497878.1997.9979181.

Leerssen, Joep. “Centre/Periphery” in Imagology: The cultural construction and literary representations of national characters, A critical survey, edited by Manfred Beller and Joep Leerssen, 278-281. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007.

Leerssen, Joep. “History and Method” in Imagology: The cultural construction and literary representations of national characters, A critical survey, edited by Manfred Beller and Joep Leerssen, 17-32. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007.

Leerssen, Joep. “Imagology: On using ethnicity to make sense of the world.” Revue d’études ibériques et ibéro-américaines, no. 10 (Autumn 2016): 13-31. http://imagologica.eu/cms/UPLOAD/Imagology2016.pdf.

Mellor, Anne K. “Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and the women writers of her day” in A Cambridge Companion to Mary Wollstonecraft, edited by Claudia L. Johnson, 141-159. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. https://doi-org.proxy.uba.uva.nl:2443/10.1017/CCOL0521783437.

Mills, Sara. Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and Colonialism. London: Routledge, 1993.

Mills, Sara. “Written on the landscape: Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark” in Romantic geographies: Discourses of travel 1775-1844, edited by Amanda Gilroy, 19-34. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.

56

Mulligan, Maureen. “Women’s travel writing and the legacy of Romanticism.” Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 14, no. 4 (2016): 323-338. https://doi.org/10.1080/14766825.2015.1076431.

Riksarkivet. “Fredrika Bremer.” Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon. Accessed 14 August 2018. https://sok.riksarkivet.se/SBL/Presentation.aspx?id=16936.

Robins Pennell, Elizabeth. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. London: Gibbings and Company, Limited, 1909. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015008037361.

Scaramellini, Guglielmo. “The picturesque and the sublime in nature and the landscape: Writing and iconography in the romantic voyaging in the Alps.” GeoJournal 38, no. 1 (January 1996): 49-57.

Thompson, Carl. “Journeys to Authority: Reassessing Women’s Early Travel Writing, 1763- 1862.” Women’s Writing 24, no. 2 (2017): 131-150. https://doi.org/10.1080/09699082.2016.1207915.

Time’s Up. “Time’s Up: The clock has run out on sexual assault, harassment and inequality in the workplace. It’s time to do something about it.” Accessed 4 February 2018. https://www.timesupnow.com/.

Verstraete, Ginette. “Gender” in Imagology: The cultural construction and literary representations of national characters, A critical survey, edited by Manfred Beller and Joep Leerssen, 328-332. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007.

Wollstonecraft, Mary. Letters written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, edited by Tone Brekke and Jon Mee. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

57