The events of the French Revolution spurred many Romantic writers to question prescribed social roles, including those of gender. The fight for freedom for all led to new ideas about the role of women in English society. The Romantic era brought perhaps the first feminist writings, creating a debate among Romantic writers on the merits of women’s rights.
Mary Wollstonecraft was disturbed by the lack of education and intellectual ambition among women during this time period, and penned “Vindication of the Rights of Woman” as a response. She was dismayed that the culture valued women only for their physical appearance and coy charms, leaving women with nothing much to offer after their beauty faded. She writes, “The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity.” (Wu, 279). Wollstonecraft wants women to reject the view that they are useful only for their beauty and refined social graces, and to realize that “…the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness…” (280). She believes that women are too quick to accept submissive roles in order to please men, and that this in turn influences men to act condescendingly towards women. She is disdainful of the education system, which was patronizing towards the intellectual capacity of girls. Wollstonecraft is critical of the fact that society gives women only one way to improve their lot in life: marriage, and is critical of women who are complicit in this belief, writing, “It is acknowledged that they spend many of their first years in acquiring a smattering of accomplishments: meanwhile strength of body and mind are sacrificed to the libertine notions of beauty, to the desire of establishing themselves- the only way women can rise in the world – by marriage. And this desire making mere animals of them, when they marry they act as such children may be expected to act: they dress; they paint, and nickname God’s creatures. Surely these weak beings are only fit for a seraglio! Can they govern a family, or take care of the poor babes whom they bring into the world?” (281). She believes a lack of equal education renders women weak and prone to ineffectual thinking, therefore becoming trapped in a position of inferiority to men. She proposes educating boys and girls side-by-side, in order to produce men who are less selfish and women who are less frivolous and weak.
In response to Wollstonecraft’s “Vindication”, the writer Anna Laetitia Barbauld offered a poem titled “The Rights of Woman”. In this work, she satirically takes on Wollstonecraft’s militant views, writing, ” Try all that wit and art suggest to bend / Of thy imperial foe the stubborn knee; / Make treacherous man thy subject, not thy friend – / Thou mayst command, but never canst be free.” (42, 17-20). She is ridiculing the call for women to become less coquettish and to assert their natural intellectual equality to men. In fact, she believes such equality to be unnatural, unrealistic, and unromantic. In the final verses of “The Rights of Woman”, she asserts that the militant position on women’s rights is based on too much pride and stubbornness, writing, “But hope not, courted idol of mankind, / On this proud eminence secure to say; / Subduing and subdued, thou soon shalt find / Thy coldness soften, and thy pride give way. / Then, then, abandon each ambitious thought, / Conquest or rule thy heart shall feebly move, / In Nature’s school, by her soft maxims taught / That separate rights are lost in mutual love.” (42, 25-32). Barbauld seems to believe that the emphasis Wollstonecraft places on education and equality for women is in opposition to the ancient lessons taught in “Nature’s school”.
William Blake offers a view similar to Wollstonecraft’s, alluding to women’s reluctance to enter into maturity in his poem “The Book of Thel. In this poem, he describes a young woman, Thel (“the daughter of beauty” (178, 93)) who lives in an idyllic world. She ponders on the inevitability of the fading of the flowers around her, and seeks to understand why things, including herself, must fade away. Thel mourns for the transient nature of life, saying, ” ‘Oh life of this our spring! Why fades the lotus of the water? / Why fade these children of the spring, born but to smile and fall?’ ” (176, 6-7). She is answered by various natural beings, including a lily of the valley, a cloud, and a clod of clay. They show her that there is purpose and usefulness in the cycle of life, and that God gives his blessings to those who embrace and contribute gracefully to it. She is invited by the clod of clay to enter the underground world, to experience the realities of life and death. Thel sees the coldness of graves, and hears many sorrowful voices. She is frightened by what she sees, and instead of coming to terms with the reality of life and growing up, she runs back to her idyllic world, where she can remain child-like and pure. Blake seems to believe that remaining in a immature state, and trying to stay wrapped up in a world focusing only on beauty, is unhealthy for women. They must make the leap into the real world of substance.
In this period of drastic social change, the Romantic writers were finding new ways to look at the roles of women. Wollstonecraft and Blake believed in a push for growth in women, for them to strive for intellectual and emotional maturity. To them, to remain dependent and childish, either by their own choice or due to society’s expectations, would keep women from equality with men. Both Barbauld and Wollstonecraft believed that there are natural differences between men and women, but for Barbauld, there was no need to try to move beyond these differences. Wollstonecraft wanted women to differentiate between natural and cultural traits, and begin to better themselves through education.
Works Cited
Wu, Duncan, ed. Romanticism: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1994, 1998).
