The Function of Sublime and Reason in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Grand Tour Account Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796)

Abstract

In 1796, Mary Wollstonecraft published Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, written during her journey to a destination different from the eighteenth-century Grand Tour of Europe. Authorized to restore a ship carrying lost silver freight in Sweden, Wollstonecraft embarks on a business journey, tracing societal development, the economic and political conditions of states through philosophical contemplations, sentimental narrative, and sublime experience. In this paper, it is argued that for Wollstonecraft, who travelled in the Romantic period, the sublime represents mental mobility. Encounters with sublime nature display the individual’s adequacy in thinking and analysing the external environment, illustrating the sublime an instrument of reason.

Highlights:

•  Examines Wollstonecraft’s A Short Residence within the context of 18th-century Scandinavian travel and the Grand Tour.
• Argues that encounters with the sublime function as an instrument of reason and mental mobility rather than purely emotional response.
• Synthesizes Kantian aesthetic theory with Wollstonecraft’s socio-political observations and critical analysis.
• Analyzes the epistolary format as a vehicle bridging gendered travel conventions, personal reflection, and rational discourse.
• Illustrates how physical movement through natural landscapes stimulates intellectual development and engagement with local cultures.