Women Travel Writers :: Gender Femininity Literature Essays

Women Travel Writers After my own presentation, I wanted to dig a little deeper and nail how women travel writers were representing disposition in the 18th century. I wondered if the womens descriptions differed far from the men that I studied in my presentation. I want to focus on Dorothy Wordsworth (Williams sister), Ann Radcliffe and Helen maria Williams. Im curious to know if they were guilty of over-representing women in landscape and nature scenes. At the very end, Ill put in my two cents about the gendering of spirit. First of all, Dorothy Wordsworth traveled with her buddy a lot in the early 1800s during this time she kept a journal and wrote, in rich details, about the landscape. Although she wrote predominately with a picturesque tone, she made an safari to pay attention to the sharp, jarring contrasts in nature, like crags, rough edges, and precipices. William Snyders essay Mother reputations Other reputations Landscape in Womens Writing, 1770-1830 suggests that it was Dorothys intention to practice session the paradoxes in nature to focus on Natures contrast. Snyders source for his theory comes from his close readings of Dorothys journals he explains that her language and vocabulary are picturesque, but that she presents Nature in need of care (146). Snyder infers that for Dorothy, enatic care flows out from the human heart, not to it from above or beyond (146). Snyder comments that Dorothy made a point of highlighting the irregularities in nature and draws her inspiration on the irony of ordered chaos. Snyder concludes that Dorothy likens Nature to a dress-maker, the female as pattern-maker (148). He suggests that she places emphasis on what the hands, not the breasts, do (148). Snyder also points out that Dorothy usually referred to Nature with the impersonal pronoun it, and not with she or her (147) Snyder believes that Dorothy deliberately overlooks possibilities for maternal symbolism or personification (147). Dorothy does not view mat ernality with fertility and bounty, but with protection and intimacy (148). However, she does use the feminine pronoun in some of her works, but Snyder explains that she, the metaphoric woman, is a craftsperson, not a mother (147). Unfortunately Snyders argument does not convince me how can Nature be a pattern-maker while being in need of care? I think the image of pattern-maker indicates originality and creativity, Nature as innovative and refreshing, not Nature in need of help, as Snyder indicates early in his argument.