Session 13 Discussion Questions

Questions for Discussion:  Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark

1. How do Wollstonecraft’s political views color the themes of the Letters?  To what extent can this work be read as a political text?
2. What do you make of Wollstonecraft’s description of Robespierre as a “monster” and the Norwegian bailiffs as “political monsters” (73, 77)?  What sea-changes have taken place in her political views since writing the Rights of Men?  What has remained consistent?
3. What is the significance of Wollstonecraft’s journey to the Norwegian “cascade,” and her invitation to her reader to “go with me”? (83)
4. What direct and indirect references to Shakespeare did you find in the Letters?  Why did Wollstonecraft include them?
5. What are Wollstonecraft’s observations on love, marriage, and family life in Scandinavia?  How do they compare to her views on these practices in Britain and other countries?
6. Do you agree with Gordon that Copenhagen was “hell” for Wollstonecraft?
7. What accounts for the poignancy of letter 25, given what we know of the biographical circumstances of Wollstonecraft’s return to Britain and her subsequent literary re-imagining of this journey in composing the Letters?
8. Do you agree with Gordon that Wollstonecraft’s relationship with Godwin was “the most fruitful experiment” of both of their lives?
9. How do Wollstonecraft’s grapplings with death--both real and philosophical--affect you as a reader?
10. How does the early reception of Wollstonecraft’s life and ideas build upon yet diverge from Wollstonecraft’s literary representations of herself and her philosophy?