Mary Shelley n e Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin often known as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist short story writer dramatist essayist biographer travel writer and editor of the works of her husband Romantic poet and philosopher site_link Percy Bysshe Shelley She was the daughter of the political philosopher site_link William Godwin and the writer philosopher and feminist site_link Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary Shelley was taken seriously as a writer in her own lifetime though reviewers often missed the political edge to her novels After her death however she was chiefly remembered only as the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley and as the author of Frankenstein It was not until 1989 when Emily Sunstein published her prizewinning biography Mary Shel Mary Shelley n e Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin often known as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist short story writer dramatist essayist biographer travel writer and editor of the works of her husband Romantic poet and philosopher site_link Percy Bysshe Shelley She was the daughter of the political philosopher site_link William Godwin and the writer philosopher and feminist site_link Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary Shelley was taken seriously as a writer in her own lifetime though reviewers often missed the political edge to her novels After her death however she was chiefly remembered only as the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley and as the author of Frankenstein It was not until 1989 when Emily Sunstein published her prizewinning biography Mary Shelley Romance and Reality that a full length scholarly biography analyzing all of Shelley s letters journals and works within their historical context was published. The well meaning attempts of Mary Shelley s son and daughter in law to Victorianise her memory through the censoring of letters and biographical material contributed to a perception of Mary Shelley as a conventional less reformist figure than her works suggest Her own timid omissions from Percy Shelley s works and her quiet avoidance of public controversy in the later years of her life added to this impression The eclipse of Mary Shelley s reputation as a novelist and biographer meant that until the last thirty years most of her works remained out of print obstructing a larger view of her achievement She was seen as a one novel author if that In recent decades however the republication of almost all her writings has stimulated a new recognition of its value Her voracious reading habits and intensive study revealed in her journals and letters and reflected in her works is now better appreciated Shelley s recognition of herself as an author has also been recognized after Percy s death she wrote about her authorial ambitions I think that I can maintain myself and there is something inspiriting in the idea Scholars now consider Mary Shelley to be a major Romantic figure significant for her literary achievement and her political voice as a woman and a liberal site_link On Ghosts is an essay written by Mary Shelley first published in London Magazine March 1824 On GhostsMary Shelley makes strong points in this clever essay I must say that I enjoyed the stories she recounts of other s ghost stories as well as The King of Cats story I think that while people say that they don t believe in ghosts or spirits or other supernatural entities the same people hesitate at entering an abandoned cemetery at midnight English Are there any reasons to believe in ghosts Mary Shelley comes up with a wonderfully crafted essay on the age of magic followed by our modern age of reason She gives some interesting examples why ghosts are part of our modern world At the end of her writing she gives a far too exaggerated example pro ghosts Does she convince us Well the text is a bit dated and I don t think the ghost she s conjuring up here are around any But a recommended and interesting classic read English i wanna read mary shelley s grocery shopping list English so which of yall didn t tell me that Mary Shelley had an essay titled On Ghosts English This was a very interesting read. I don t agree with the logic we ll be getting to that but in terms of rhetoric it is written beautifully Her sentences seem to flow into each other making her paragraphs the truly magnificent to the detriment of the sentences if isolated Luckily her sentences are often the size of paragraphs anyway so the issue is quite often avoided. One of the best parts of this essay were the stories Shelley walking into her dead friends home the tale of the Englishman and the tale of the Italian were all good I particularly like the first and third because in order the first shows Shelley attempting to denote what amounts to her persuasive argument and the Italian story seems just weird enough to be endearing like a Lafcadio Hearn translation ghost story which I enjoy The final story attributed to M G Lewis was clever and funny a great ending. To me the argument Shelley is trying to make appears to ring home in principle She describes walking through a house where a friend has recently passed away as previously mentioned feeling very depressed as if all humanity were but walking corpses Suddenly a wind bursts forth through the window frightening her Before this emotion manifests however she makes this curious remark I would have knelt until the stones had been worn by the impress This hints at her being ashamed of her previous thoughts this wind acting as a sort of wake up call the later fear her total ignorance of the cause She acknowledges that some might not feel this latter but even then one must feel that influences do exist to watch and guard over us Through this story and through other allusions to our nature to be frightened when given a number of stimuli she attempts to argue that we humans know of something that we are yet ignorant of In a way she asks us to listen to this feeling and open our minds a bit to the idea in this essay of ghosts The first few passages are dedicated to Shelley asking even sometimes lamenting where our blind forefather s imaginative world has disappeared She concludes it to be superseded by our superior knowledge but she also points out that we are still ignorant of a lot of things In that sense she is appealing to our ignorance possibly in an attempt to say that we can only so very sure of ourselves in the daylight of our knowledge but at night we are quite of the opposite opinion She continues by saying she knows of two people who would avow in broad daylight their belief in ghosts but at least in my humble opinion this continuation is rather still of a questioning short she doesn t ever really move beyond the wish to open our minds I m fine with that the evidence for ghosts is sorely lacking she herself only having seen one in a dream and these friends obviously being anecdotal evidence She might believe but she deliberately mentions unbelievers after her grief story indicating to me that the essay still presupposes nonbelievers as reading I think that fits with the theming well after all becoming open does not indicate becoming credulous So for a concluding thought the only thing I can say is that I m not totally convinced which causes the single star removal but that it was still interesting a type of brain food The principle I referred to at the beginning of this paragraph comes down to the ability to be open minded to new ideas ideas if you ll allow me to be specific about things that are totally falsifiable a person who tells a story of a ghost is not giving you proof of that ghost for a revelation ceases to be a revelation the minute it becomes hearsay in light of this we could say that keeping an open mind to these hearsay revelations is good or beneficial in if nothing else an intellectual way Post Note I think I should also mention that jumping from having a feeling such as fear to a conclusion such as she does isn t all that great Although Shelley wouldn t have known this it is a perfectly possible explanation to say that we fear because we ve evolved to fear these stories just hit the right buttons Or we have been socialized to fear in this way if we wish to look at it that way It is probably just a bit of a leap at least to modern standards English
| On Ghosts By Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley |
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