"Maria" and Posthumous Publishing

As we discussed in class on Wednesday, posthumous publishing of an author's work is nothing new. But, is it always a good idea? Especially when the publisher does  not know if the late author would be okay with that? An unedited and unfinished work that could be controversial like Maria has the potential to sully an author's reputation. There are also times when it could invade the author's privacy. I know I don't always like showing unfinished work to others. Someone in class mentioned Dr. Hunter S. Thompson and his posthumous works. Even his suicide note has been made public! While Thompson doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would care, some others might. All this being said, there are posthumous works that I am glad we have. Byron's Don Juan is a good example, as are the poems of Emily Dickinson.

(Presentation notes) Women and the Law; Addressing Inequality, Imprisonment and Madness

Women were viewed by society to be the weaker sex, and faced unequal treatment regarding rights by law, job opportunities, and education. Men had the ability to sue their wives for adultery, gain full custody of children in the case of divorce, as well as a full range of educational and legal resources at their disposal. Women on the other hand were unable to sue their husbands (unless attempting to prove physical danger - which was RARELY proven), were seen as the property of their husbands (along with any assets they owned prior), and faced a lack of educational resources and occupational options.

Mary Wollstonecraft is seen by many critics to be the ‘Mother of Feminism’, drawing from many of her own life experiences to form the basis of many of her feminist and ‘radical’ writings. Mary advocated for the rigorous education of young girls into their adulthood, something that was lacking in her time. She also rejected the idea that women were inherently weaker or less capable than men, and strongly fought against the subjugation of women, both in marriage and society. Coming from a family composed of a violent father and a submissive mother, she strove to avoid facing the same ills, but like many others before her- also faced her own demons when it came to her personal life. Pregnant and unmarried (Mary Shelley is the wonderful result of this pregnancy) Mary Wollstonecraft surrounded herself with friends who strongly supported her publications as a means of supporting herself independently, and only later met someone with whom she found herself an equal. 

“The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria”- the asylum setting parallels the lack of physical and mental freedoms that women experienced in society (i.e. the protagonist is imprisoned by her husband unjustly)

“Was not the world a vast prison, and women born slaves?” ( pg. 167)

Mary felt that by denying women serious, rational pursuits, society relegated them to a lifetime of vanity and weakness/inequality. She uses fiction to address feminist ideas of education and morality, medical theories of the mind, and gender differences in a way that is approachable and instructive to the women readership. This novel also helped to pioneer the celebration of female sexuality and cross-class identification between women. 

The heroine’s inability to relinquish her romantic fantasies of life and character reveals women’s collusion in their oppression through false and damaging ‘sentimentalism’. The novel criticizes the patriarchal institution of marriage and the laws that protect it by aligning women with the insane: a minority to be championed in Romantic society. 

This representation reflects a Societal view rather than an Individual view; addressed the wrongs done to women (repression), and by women (sentimentalism).

'Mary Wollstonecraft' by John Opie

 'A Rake's Progress' by William Hogarth (Bedlam depiction)

 'Mary Wollstonecraft' by John Opie

'The Nightmare' by Henry Fuseli

WORKS CITED:

Black, Joseph, ed. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature- The Age of Romanticism. 2nd ed. Vol. 4. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Pr, 2010. Print.

Blake, William. "Drawings for Mary Wollstonecraft's "Original Stories from Real Life"" (c. 1791): Electronic Edition. Library of Congress, n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2013.

"Mary Wollstonecraft." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 04 July 2013. Web. 04 Apr. 2013.

Wollstonecraft, Mary. Mary, A Fiction and The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria. Ed. Michelle Faubert. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Pr, 2012. Print.

Maria

Maria by Wollstonecraft is strongly autobiographical.
Mary wanted reform of social norms and conditions; especially focused on the rights and education of women. She strongly believed in living for the future instead of oneself.
Why did she write this novel the way she did?
Why did she write the ending in a very fragmented way?
Why is it that at the beginning of each chapter she capitalized the first, and sometimes second word(s) ? And again she did this at the very end of the novel with "THE END." What is the significance of this feature in her novel? Do they draw attention to an important aspect of the chapter? Or maybe all the capitalized words together represent a uniform meaning of the entire novel rather than each individual chapter.
The asylum is used as a radical space by Wollstonecraft for the characters to interact; social structures and barriers are non-existent. It allows for communication and connection that otherwise would not be possible.

the great mysteries of mary

I think that the fact that Mary left out basic information in the begining but slowly unravels it as the story evolves is magnifiacent. It creates a mysterious feeling and keeps the reader intact and curious as to what is to happen next or wonder how things happened in the first place.

Cult of Sensibility

There was a particular scene in Maria that reminded me of Adeline, from Romance of the Forest. The parallel between Maria and Adeline that I'm talking about is in chapter 2 of Maria. After Jemima brought Maria the copy of Rousseau's Heloise, Maria opened her window and absorbed the scenery, towards which she (if only for a moment) was entranced by nature; Maria was "absorbed by the sublime sensibility which renders the consciousness of existence felicity" (pg 177).

In this moment, Maria, like Adeline, found solace in nature and was emotionally affected by it. I think this provides yet another example of Wollstonecraft's use of a common assertion of women. This runs parallel with the idea of the "Cult of Sensibility."

Wollstonecraft immediately disrupted this moment of felicity by reminding Maria of her institutionalization; "[The] autumnal scent, wafted by the breeze of morn from the fallen leaves of the adjacent wood, made her recollect that the season had changed since her confinement" (pg 177). This example shows that when Maria attempts to transcend her material conditions, she is only reminded of it even more.

I find that this detraction and re-realization of Maria's own material conditions subverts the notion of the "Cult of Sensibility" that Wollstonecraft abhorred. By subverting and challenging these assumptions, Wollstonecraft is telling her audience that decadence, idealism, and excessive indulgence to the senses is simply not enough to free oneself from their material/social conditions within society.

Fragments

One of the lingering questions I have from our reading of Maria is why would this have been published when it was clearly in an unfinished state? With Kubla Khan Coelridge was able to create an end to the poem that overall gave t a cohesive message; here the lack of ending serves to only create confusion. Without a clear eding the various potential messages of the work are in a state of flux, which overall detracts from the work as a whole.

Maria and freedom among society

One of the certain themes presented in Maria is it emphasizes of the human mind free from the societal expectations. The story presents a scenario, which may not be so different from our own, which people live by an unwritten code of how people should behave, in this case the women. The societal expectations presented in the story effect how the people interact with each other and what they think is appropriate. With the inability for women to progress among society and expected to behave a certain way gave more of an oppressive or even a slave mentality. Therefore, when the main character is inside the asylum all of the rules of society no longer apply of how the deemed insane interact with each other. Already deemed unfit to live among the people, the characters reveal the truth about the world they live, in which the audience begins to understand the environments power to gives to the characters a sense of freedom. In conclusion the truth revealed by the characters enables not only the audience to sympathize with the main character, but opens to the truth of what is really happening in the world they live in. In other words, the truth was revealed in literature, not so much in pamphlets or a newspaper. 

Difference in Letters

It's interesting that the Grand Tour was commonly for young men, yet out of all the travel narratives we read, they are all told from the perspective of women. In Mary Wollstonecraft's Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, there seems to be a different type of travel narrative. It reads more like a story, rather than an account and it seems to be autobiographical. Out of all the stories, this one is very personable, and real. Though all the women use sublimity in their works, in Wollstonecraft's work, Wollstonecraft connects a lot of it to sterility and the beautiful to fertility

The Grand Tour and Mary Shelley's Six Weeks' Tour

The Grand Tour

The tradition started in the late 1600's to 1840s. The idea was to gain necessary criteria for social advancement. It was a conventional idea that served as an educational rite of passage pursued by young, aristocratic and British males. It wasn't until the 18th and early 19th century when it was more accessible to the middle class after the progression of rail and steamships.

The tour lasted between 2 and 3 years. The tour usually started in England and then proceeded Netherlands, France, Florence and Rome. The traveler usually escorted by a tutor known as a "bearleader." The tutor were responsible for presenting important buildings, paintings, and historical sites. The Grand tour was a way for a young man to appreciate a new culture, and develop a new maturity, improved taste and an understanding of foreign cultures. Because of the resources, and popularity,  many writers started to partake in these journeys, but a new travel called "Romantic travel" appeared.  It coincided with a revolution in taste, mainly in relation to the aesthetics of the sublime and the picturesque. 

Mary Shelley

Her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft and father William Godwin, a political journalist. She was taught by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Maria Edgeworth. She met and fell in love with Percy Shelley 1814 and they eloped a few years later, after his first wife committed suicide. They toured France, Switzerland and Germany before settling in Italy. Percy died in 1822 from drowning, which made her feel alone and isolated with no way to support herself so she started writing for income. She wrote for many years and helped bring some of Percy’s earlier

works to the public. She died in 1851 from a brain tumor.  Shelley was conscious of the political issues of her time and was influenced by her ather and mother and various radical thinkers that visited her household. Ideas such as abuse of power and social justice. Shelley wasn't radical, but she did bring about philosophical and social issues in her works. She believed in creating a sympathetic connection between people to create a peaceful society and increase in knowledge. She was committed to Romantic Idealism which heightened interest in nature, sublime and imagination.

History of a Six Weeks' Tour

• Addresses the effects of politics and war on France.

• The letters reflect the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo

• Describes shortage of money, dangers of encountering Napoleon’s recently demobilized army.

• In Letter II she discusses the equality in England versus the equality of other places.

• She also addresses women’s education 
The use of descriptive nature is a prevalent theme throughout Mary Shelley’sworks. 

Romantic writers and the Sublime

Changing political and cultural times

Internalized conflicts

Examples: “It exhibits an appearance as if frost had suddenly bound up the waves and whirlpools of a mighty torrent.”

“Throned among these desolating snows, among these palaces of death and frost, so sculpted in this their terrible magnificence.”

Time and the sublime examples:

“we arrived at sunset”

“when we returned, in the only interval of sunshine during the day, I walked…”

Feminine: “We see the lovely lake, blue as the heavens which it reflects, and sparkling with golden beams.”

Masculine: “Observing the lightning play among the clouds in various parts of the heavens, and dart in jagged figures upon the piny heights of Jura dark with the shadow of the overhanging cloud…”

Work cited: 

Black, Jeremy. The British and the Grand Tour. London: Croom Helm, 1985.

Cardinal, Roger. “Romantic Travel.” In Rewriting the self: Histories from the Renaissance to the Present. Edited by Roy Porter. London: Routledge, 1997.

 "The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The 18th Century: Topic 4: Texts and Contexts." The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The 18th Century: Topic 4: Texts and Contexts. N.p., 2010. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

Social Classes in Maria

I think the bond between Maria and Jemima is an important notion in this novel. Obviously their social classes are much different. This was written in a time when social class was much more important than it is today. Maria is of more elevated rank than Jemima, and yet the two form a strong friendship based on their mutual hardships. Both women have endured horrendous events in their lives, which allows them to connect in a way they normally would not be able to because of their difference in social classes. Mary Wollstonecraft is credited with opening up a commonality between women of all social classes. This novel is a great example of her ability. Maria and Jemima show that no matter a woman's social standing, hardships exist. A woman of high social standing can feel the same way as a woman of low social standing.