Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 21, 2010

Mary: A Fiction is the first and only complete novel written by the 18th-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Published in 1788, it tells the story of a heroine's successive "romantic friendships" with a woman and a man. 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. 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. (more...)

Recently featured: SS Dakotan – "City of Blinding Lights" – Dick Turpin