Mitzi Myers Criticism of Wollstonecrafts Maria Essay -- Literary Cri

Mitzi Myers review article of Wollstonecrafts MariaIn her article slightly Mary Wollstonecraft Mitzi Myers examines Maria in contrast to her other manoeuvres, especially Mary and Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in an political campaign to better understand the author and her purpose in writing. She refers to arguments posed by several critics in order to build her conclusions. She also seeks the insights provided by William Godwins notes about Wollstonecraft. Myers calls her an individualist and innovator in her fiction and aesthetic theory as well as in her polemical tracts, and admits that Wollstonecraft confronts, though she does not solve, the bother of integrating a rational feminist program with one womans inbred feminine vision (107). Mitzi Myers acknowledges that it was William Godwins respect for Mary Wollstonecrafts work and his belief that her work of fiction might have given a new impulse to the readiness of a world had the sketch equaled the conception (107). Myers believes that Wollstonecraft kept her pledge to finish the protraction of The Rights of Women as promised in the Advertisement (107). Taken from Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraft ed. W. Clark Durant ( l 927), p.111, Myers cites Williams account of Wollstonecrafts extended labors (more than twelve months for Maria versus six weeks for the Rights of Woman) . . . Godwin relates, . . . When she had finished what she intended for the first sort out of Maria, she felt herself more urgently stimulated to revise and improve . . . than to march on (107). Just as anti-Jacobin critics promptly attacked the novel as an apologia for a philosophers wanton conduct (l07), Myers feels that many modern biographers treat her attempt at a novel similarly, a... ...oes seem a fair assumption establish on what seem to be her goals. Suggesting that we are left with a alter despair and hope, Wollstonecrafts hints for the ending comprise an oddly apposite do-it-yourself getup for the reader (113) . Myers seems to be suggesting that the story is stronger without an ending from Wollstonecrafts vantage, allowing the reader the option of complemental the story, provides her the advantage of making her statement while avoiding public criticism regarding the lesson, or even failure of achieving the optimum conclusion. For the modern reader, the unfinished story provides a glimpse of the society which produced Wollstonecraft and her feminist ideas, but it also makes for interesting writing assignments and/or discussions. Works CitedMyers, Mitzi. Unfinished Business Wollstonecrafts Maria. The Wordsworth Circle 11 (1980) 107-14.