Mary: A Fiction is the first and only complete novel written by the eighteenth-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. It tells the tragic story of a heroine's successive "romantic friendships" with a woman and a man. Composed while Wollstonecraft was a governess in Ireland, the novel was published in 1788 shortly after her summary dismissal. Helping to redefine genius, Wollstonecraft describes Mary as independent and capable of defining femininity and marriage for herself. It is Mary's "strong, original opinions" and her resistance to "conventional wisdom" that mark her as a genius. Making her heroine a genius allowed Wollstonecraft to criticize marriage as well: geniuses were "enchained" rather than enriched by marriage. Through this heroine Wollstonecraft also critiques eighteenth-century sensibility and its damaging effects on women. Mary rewrites the traditional romance plot through its reimagination of gender relations and female sexuality. Wollstonecraft later repudiated Mary, writing that it was laughable. However, scholars have argued that, despite its faults, the novel's representation of an energetic, unconventional, opinionated, rational, female genius (the first of its kind in English literature) is an important development in the history of the novel because it helped shape an emerging feminist discourse.
Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary%3A_A_Fiction
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1783:
The first successful untethered flight by humans in a hot air balloon was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes in Paris. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ballooning%23First_manned_flight
1910:
The crews of the Brazilian warships Minas Geraes, São Paulo, Bahia, and Deodoro mutinied in what became known as the Revolt of the Whip . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolt_of_the_Whip
1920:
Irish War of Independence: On Bloody Sunday in Dublin, the Irish Republican Army killed more than a dozen British intelligence officers known as the Cairo Gang, and the Auxiliaries of the Royal Irish Constabulary opened fire on players and spectators at a Gaelic football match in Croke Park. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_%281920%29
1964:
The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, a suspension bridge connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn in New York City at the Narrows, opened to traffic, becoming the largest suspension bridge in the world at the time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verrazano-Narrows_Bridge
1974:
Explosives placed in two central pubs in Birmingham, England, killed 21 people and injured 182 others, and eventually led to the arrest and imprisonment of six people who became known as the Birmingham Six. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_pub_bombings
1977:
"God Defend New Zealand" became New Zealand's second national anthem, on equal standing with "God Save the Queen", which had been the traditional one since 1840. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Defend_New_Zealand
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
immolate (v): 1. To kill as a sacrifice. 2. To destroy, especially by fire http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/immolate
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Although I came to doubt all revelation, I can never accept the idea that the Universe is a physical or chemical accident, a result of blind evolution. Even though I learned to recognize the lies, the clichés and the idolatries of the human mind, I still cling to some truths which I think all of us might accept some day. There must be a way for man to attain all possible pleasures, all the powers and knowledge that nature can grant him, and still serve God — a God who speaks in deeds, not in words, and whose vocabulary is the Cosmos. --Isaac Bashevis Singer http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Bashevis_Singer