The essays in this collection represent the explosion of scholarly interest since the 1960s in the pioneering feminist, philosopher, novelist, and political theorist, Mary Wollstonecraft. This ...interdisciplinary selection, which is organized by theme and genre, demonstrates Wollstonecraft's importance in contemporary social, political and sexual theory and in Romantic studies. The book examines the reception of Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman but it also deals with the full range of her work from travel writing, education, religion and conduct literature to her novels, letters and literary reviews. As well as reproducing the most important modern Wollstonecraft scholarship the collection tracks the development of the author's reputation from the nineteenth century. The essays reprinted here (from early appreciations by George Eliot, Emma Goldman and Virginia Woolf to the work of twenty-first century scholars) include many of the most influential accounts of Wollstonecraft's remarkable contribution to the development of modern political and social thought. The book is essential reading for students of Wollstonecraft and late eighteenth-century women's writing, history, and politics.
In 1798, English essayist and novelist William Godwin ignited a transatlantic scandal withMemoirs of the Author of "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman."Most controversial were the details of the ...romantic liaisons of Godwin's wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, with both American Gilbert Imlay and Godwin himself. Wollstonecraft's life and writings became central to a continuing discussion about love's place in human society. Literary radicals argued that the cultivation of intense friendship could lead to the renovation of social and political institutions, whereas others maintained that these freethinkers were indulging their own desires with a disregard for stability and higher authority. Through correspondence and novels, Andrew Cayton finds an ideal lens to view authors, characters, and readers all debating love's power to alter men and women in the world around them.Cayton argues for Wollstonecraft's and Godwin's enduring influence on fiction published in Great Britain and the United States and explores Mary Godwin Shelley's endeavors to sustain her mother's faith in romantic love as an engine of social change.
The essays included here show that Wollstonecraft's legacy is still with us today as the balancing act between a society where sexual distinction translates into gender prejudice and a utopian order ...where sexual difference ceases to be a structuring element of social, economic and political bias.
Introducción. El pensamiento feminista moderno tiene como punto de partida la Ilustración y, concretamente, las reivindicaciones de las mujeres surgidas a raíz de la Revolución Francesa. Objetivos. ...El objetivo de este trabajo es llevar ese punto de partida al siglo previo, examinando el pensamiento de sor Juana Inés de la Cruz respecto a la educación de las mujeres y las claves feministas que se desprenden de su discurso. Metodología. Para ello, se analizan y enfrentan tres textos: dos de ellos escritos por la citada autora (la Carta al Padre Núñez y la Respuesta a sor Filotea) y el restante de Mary Wollstonecraft (Vindicación de los derechos de la mujer) con el fin de situar el pensamiento sorjuaniano como precedente feminista {de/a} Wollstonecraft, reconociendo a esta autora y su obra como esenciales en el inicio del movimiento feminista actual. Resultados. En este sentido, se observan y comparan las propuestas que ambas autoras realizan respecto a la educación de las mujeres, comprobándose que sor Juana se adelanta en muchos de sus planteamientos a los que posteriormente aborda Wollstonecraft. Conclusiones y discusión. Las principales aportaciones del trabajo son, en primer lugar, considerar a sor Juana una pensadora feminista por sus contribuciones a la educación de las mujeres, y no solo una gran figura de la literatura del Siglo de Oro; y, en segundo término, abrir el debate sobre el pensamiento feminista previo a la Ilustración y considerarlo las raíces a partir de las que comienza a crecer el movimiento social posterior.
Often identified with its lyric poetry, Romanticism has come to be dismissed by historicists as an ineffectual idealism. By focusing on Romantic narrative, noted humanist Tilottama Rajan takes issue ...with this identification, as well as with the equation of narrative itself with the governmental apparatus of the Novel. Exploring the role of narrativity in the works of Romantic writers, Rajan also reflects on larger disciplinary issues such as the role of poetry versus prose in an emergent modernity and the place of Romanticism itself in a Victorianized nineteenth century.While engaging both genres, Romantic Narrative responds to the current critical shift from poetry to prose by concentrating, paradoxically, on a poetics of narrative in Romantic prose fiction. Rajan argues that poiesis, as a mode of thinking, is Romanticism’s legacy to an age of prose. She elucidates this thesis through careful readings of Shelley’s Alastor and his Gothic novels, Godwin’s Caleb Williams and St. Leon, Hays’ Memoirs of Emma Courtney, and Wollstonecraft’s The Wrongs of Woman. Rajan, winner of the Keats-Shelley Association's Distinguished Lifetime Award and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is one of Romanticism’s leading scholars. Effective, articulate, and readable, Romantic Narrative will appeal to scholars in both nineteenth-century studies and narrative theory.
Explores how the publication of women's life writing influenced the reputation of its writers and of the genre itself during the long nineteenth century.
This paper aims to present some fundamental elements in Mary Wollstonecraft and Simone de Beauvoir's thoughts. At first, we present Wollstonecraft's ideas about education. The educational system does ...not follow the enlightened criteria that shows men and women as equally rational beings and therefore holders of the same rights. Then, we show some of Beauvoir's considerations about biological sexism. The existentialist thinker posited that the situation is more determinant of our existence than any supposed feminine essence. In this sense, we talk about some proposals that can help create philosophical thinking around women's conditions. KEYWORDS Feminism. Philosophy. Mary Wollstonecraft. Simone de Beauvoir. O objetivo deste artigo e apresentar alguns elementos fundamentais nos pensamentos de Mary Wollstonecraft e Simone de Beauvoir. Em um primeiro momento, apresentamos as ideias de Wollstonecraft sobre a educacao. O sistema de instrucao nao seguia os principios iluministas que deveriam mostrar homens e mulheres como seres igualmente racionais e, portanto, detentores dos mesmos direitos. Em seguida, mostramos algumas consideracoes de Beauvoir acerca do sexismo biologico. A pensadora existencialista defendia que a situacao e mais determinante da existencia do que qualquer suposta essencia feminina. Neste sentido, falamos sobre algumas propostas que nos podem ajudar a construir um pensar filosofico em torno da condicao das mulheres. PALAVRAS-CHAVE Feminismo. Filosofia. Mary Wollstonecraft. Simone de Beauvoir.
Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the greatest philosophers and writers of the Eighteenth century. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French ...Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. Her most celebrated and widely-read work is A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. This Guidebook introduces:
Wollstonecraft’s life and the background to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
The ideas and text of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Wollstonecraft’s enduring influence in philosophy and our contemporary intellectual life
It is ideal for anyone coming to Wollstonecraft’s classic text for the first time and anyone interested in the origins of feminist thought.
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