Mary Wollstonecraft, página 2 de 5

Lescriptora britanica Mary Wollstonecraft(1759-1797) va viure una vida breu, agitada i pocconvencional. El 1792 va viatjar a França per assistirde primera ma als esdeveniments revolucionaris.Aquell mateix any va publicar la seva Vindicaciodels drets de la dona, una obra fascinadora, avoltes extravagant, en que no solament reivindicavalemancipacio de la dona en uns termes inusualsen el segle XVIII, sino que tambe proclamava la necessitatde reconstituir tot el sistema de convivenciahumana sobre bases racionals.

This volume, with its erudite introduction by Mario Praz, presents three of the most celebrated Gothic novels: The Castle of Otranto, published pseudonymously in 1765, is one of the first of the genre and the most truly Gothic of the three. Vathek (1786), an oriental tale by an eccentric millionaire, exotically combines Gothic romanticism with the vivacity of The Arabian Nights and is a narrative tour de force. The story of Frankenstein (1818) and the monster he created is as spine-chilling today as it ever was; as in all Gothic novels, horror is the keynote.

Editor: William Godwin

Douscentos doce anos despois de que se editase en Inglaterra A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) dáse ó prelo unha edición galega do que segue a ser o texto fundador do feminismo moderno. Este ensaio, que se considera un dos piares fundamentais da loita contra o patriarcado e os seus representantes intelectuais mais inmediatos, ofrece un modelo de vision do mundo que as britanicas e as europeas non tiñan a finais do seculo XVIII e do que a sociedade no seu conxunto ainda carece hoxe. A sua autora Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) e unha das grandes e descoñecidas seguidoras do espirito da Ilustracion e das ansias de liberdade xurdidas co gallo da Revolucion Francesa que non chegaron a vivir as melloras deste cambio

Illustrator: William Blake

Wollstonecrafts philosophical and gothic novel revolves around the story of a woman imprisoned in an insane asylum by her husband. It focuses on the societal rather than the individual "wrongs of woman" and criticizes what Wollstonecraft viewed as the patriarchal institution of marriage in eighteenth-century Britain and the legal system that protected it.

Wollstonecrafts philosophical and gothic novel revolves around the story of a woman imprisoned in an insane asylum by her husband. It focuses on the societal rather than the individual "wrongs of woman" and criticizes what Wollstonecraft viewed as the patriarchal institution of marriage in eighteenth-century Britain and the legal system that protected it.

Writing in an age when the call for the rights of man had brought revolution to America and France, Mary Wollstonecraft produced her own declaration of female independence in 1792. Passionate and forthright, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman attacked the prevailing view of docile, decorative femininity, and instead laid out the principles of emancipation: an equal education for girls and boys, an end to prejudice, and for women to become defined by their profession, not their partner. Mary Wollstonecrafts work was received with a mixture of admiration and outrage Walpole called her a hyena in petticoats yet it established her as the mother of modern feminism.

This book brings together three extraordinary novels by an extraordinary pair, Mary Wollstonecraft, radical feminist and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and Mary Shelley, her daughter, author of Frankenstein. In Mary (1788), Mary Wollstonecraft explores the position of an alienated intellectual woman and, in portraying her struggle against the constraints of a claustrophobic feminine world, began a line that would include the more substantial heroines of Jane Eyre and Villette. In the posthumously published Maria (1798) she continues in fiction the arguments of the Vindication. Mary Shelley wrote Matilda in 1819, while in mourning for her first son. William Godwin, Mary's father, found its subject of father-daughter incest so 'disgusting and detestable' that he refused to publish it and the work remained suppressed for over a century. In her illuminating introduction to this edition Janet Todd explores how these novels are linked, not only through the mother-daughter relationship of their authors, but in their perceptions of feminism and female sexuality and in their autobiographical richness.

María, o los agravios de la mujer, narra las iniquidades de la situación jurídica de la mujer en la que se defiende su derecho a la libertad sexual atacando a la vez el rechazo social.Como afirma Claire Tomalin, una de sus biografas, lo mas remarcable de Maria fue su rotunda afirmacion de que las mujeres tenian sentimientos y derechos sexuales, y que el presunto refinamiento que trataba de oscurecer ese aspecto era, de hecho, degradante.Mary Wollstonecraft hizo algo nuevo: ver la vida a traves de los ojos de las mujeres, Maria, o los agravios de la mujer esta repleta de chicas de servir, despedidas al descubrirse su embarazo; chicas que intentan abortar o suicidarse, objeto de todo tipo de abusos; mujeres maltratadas y vilipendiadas; esposas trabajadoras cuyos maridos les quitan todo su salario; pacientes de hospital objeto de experimentos dictados por el interes de medicos y estudiantes; mujeres encerradas en manicomios y bajo una total indefension.Maria, o los agravios de la mujer, que quedo en estado desordenado y fragmentario a la muerte de su autora, supuso una importante contribucion al exiguo grupo de obras realizadas por escritoras que ahondaron en el dolor de las mujeres de su tiempo.Una valiente novela que relata la masa silenciosa de mujeres que descubrieron un mundo vacio de oportunidades y de felicidad.

Selección de cartas escritas durante el largo viaje que emprendió Mary Wollstonecraft por Suecia, Noruega y Dinamarca; se ha considerado que, en conjunto, este epistolario constituye una obra seminal en el desarrollo del lenguaje del romanticismo ingles. La autora crea una nueva literatura epistolar en la que reflexiona sobre el progreso y el estado de las naciones, al tiempo que plasma sus impresiones del paisaje, la flora y la fauna, los habitantes de los pueblos que visita, sus costumbres, asi como la experiencia que todo esto va dejando en su alma.

La sociedad en la que vivió la autora de Vindicación de los derechos de la mujer y la muestra son obviamente muy diferentes. De los albores de la modernidad y del culto a la razón hemos pasado a la posmodernidad y a la celebracion, o a la resignacion

For many years the victim of smear campaigns by notable male writers, and dismissed as being merely the mother of Mary Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft has claimed her rightful title as one of the founders of feminist thought, a movement anchored in her Vindications.Outraged by Edmund Burkes Reflections on the Revolution in France, its use of gendered language and defence of monarchy and hereditary privilege, A Vindication of the Rights of Men turned the tables on philosophy. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman swiftly followed, taking the conversation further, and arguing the case for womens education. Together, these two seminal works went on to change the course of history, and her arguments continue to hold water today.This edition contains explanatory notes and an introduction by Bee Rowlatt, Chair of the Wollstonecraft Society.

Ed.: Henry Morley (Also see #3420 and #134)