Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark - Structure, Genre, and Style

Structure, Genre, and Style

Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark consists of twenty-five letters that address an extensive range of contentious political topics, such as prison reform, land rights, and divorce laws, as well as less controversial subjects, such as gardening, salt works, and sublime vistas. Wollstonecraft's political commentary extends the ideas she had presented in An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution (1794); her discussion of prison reform, for example, is informed by her own experiences in revolutionary France and those of her friends, many of whom were jailed.

While at first glance Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark appears to be a travel narrative, it is actually a "generic hybrid". The nature of this hybridity, however, is not altogether agreed upon by scholars. Some emphasize Wollstonecraft's fusion of the travelogue with the autobiography or memoir (a word used by Wollstonecraft in the book's advertisement), while others see it as a travelogue cum epistolary novel. The text, which reveals Wollstonecraft's thought processes, flows seamlessly from autobiographical reflections to musings on nature to political theories. However, it is unified by two threads: the first is Wollstonecraft's argument regarding the nature and progress of society; the second is her increasing melancholy. Although Wollstonecraft aims to write as a philosopher, the image of the suffering woman dominates the book.