Mary Wollstonecraft Idealism Analysis

The Romantic Movement that spanned from the the late 18th to the mid-19th Century was a period of tremendous change where the Enlightenment period’s scientific, restrictive values were replaced with ideals of equality and freedom. Mary Wollstonecraft’s The Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) advocates for reformed universal education in order to promote individualism as well as encouraging the de-establishment of existing social hierarchy to achieve an egalitarian society. In support of this, Percy Shelley’s poem Song to the Men of England (1817) also reflects the Romantic ideals of individualism and idealism.
Mary Wollstonecraft appeals to logic amongst her audience in order to promote the importance of individualism and education in

The Romantic period was a time where individuals and groups challenged established societal classes epitomised through the late 18th Century French Revolution where the clergy and working class destabilised the 3-tier feudal system. Similar to the lower classes’ attitude, Wollstonecraft expresses her disdain for entitlements metaphorically in her denunciation “Birth, riches, and every extrinsic advantage that exalt a man above his fellows, without any mental exertion, sink him in reality below them”. Furthermore, Wollstonecraft explores the corruption of moral values amongst the upper classes through cumulative listing of her targets in “wretchedness that has flowed from hereditary honours, riches, and monarchy, that men of lively sensibility have almost uttered blasphemy”. To resolve upper class society’s moral degradation, Wollstonecraft idealistically demands individuality over conformity to rigid social structures metaphorically through “There must be more equality established in society as virtuous equality will not rest firmly even when founded on a rock, if one half of mankind be chained to its bottom by fate.” Wollstonecraft extends her condemnation of a hierarchical structure by explaining through her extended metaphor “his opinions have been so steeped in the vat consecrated by authority, that the faint spirit which the grape of his own vine yields cannot be distinguished” exploring how even the clergy are similarly confined by social stratification supportive of Rousseau’s declaration “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” (The Social Contract, 1762). Wollstonecraft’s personification in “Liberty is the mother of all virtue” alludes to the motto of the French Revolution: “Liberty, equality, fraternity” reinforcing Wollstonecraft’s idealistic hopes for an egalitarian society.