The writings of Mary Wollstonecraft directly and indirectly explore the irony of the woman’s position in Wollstonecraft’s culture: the female figure is at once central and alienated. The following annotated bibliography features articles about the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft by Steven Blakemore, Maria J. Falco, Cindy L. Griffin, and Vivian Jones. Three of the four authors take a feminist approach: Falco provides a collection of feminist critiques of Wollstonecraft’s work; Griffin asserts that Wollstonecraft is the first author to write about an alienation from the perspective of women’s issues and rights; and Jones’s essay comments on the sexualizing of the historical narrative by Helen Maria Williams and Mary Wollstonecraft. Blakemore provides a different approach, examining Miltonic references in Vindications of the rights of woman.
References
(Blakemore S 1992 Rebellious reading: the doubleness of Wollstonecraft's subversion of Paradise Lost)Blakemore, S. (1992). Rebellious reading: the doubleness of Wollstonecraft's subversion of Paradise lost. Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 34, 451-80.
Blakemore’s article is a close reading of the Miltonic references in Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the rights of woman. His argument centers on the proposition that during the revolutionary period writers attempted to subvert texts which “stressed the satanic dangers of epistemological curiosity” (p. 451). However, he feels that Wollstonecraft’s use of Milton rebounds on her in such a way as to render the technique virtually useless. The focus of this argument is Wollstonecraft’s refiguring of Eve as a feminist rebel and of Satan as a revolutionary liberator (p. 452). Blakemore believes that Wollstonecraft sees herself occupying the Satanic role in her construction of the fall myth. He also feels that her occupying of this role ultimately deconstructs her vision of the fall. According to his reading, Wollstonecraft’s inversion includes God and Adam, both of whom represent the patriarchal domination of women. However, Blakemore argues that, through her refusal to believe the traditional myth, Wollstonecraft actually supports it through her personal characterization of God. She does not believe that a rational god could forbid knowledge to women, which Blakemore identifies with Satan’s seduction of Eve. Blakemore concludes that Wollstonecraft’s difficulties demonstrate the problems that all rebels and Romantics have. Tradition accounts for the possibility of rebellion and when one attempts to rebel, one still exists inside the space against which one is rebelling.
(Falco M J 1996 Feminist interpretations of Mary Wollstonecraft)Falco, M. J. (Ed.). (1996). Feminist interpretations of Mary Wollstonecraft. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
This collection of essays is the result of several conference panels in the political sciences dealing with Mary Wollstonecraft and her position or role in that discipline. Chapter one introduces Wollstonecraft and provides a context for the essays to follow. Chapter two (Weiss) questions why Wollstonecraft is not part of the political theory canon and responds to several possible explanations by comparing Wollstonecraft with Rousseau. Weiss concludes that Wollstonecraft’s fate is a political phenomenon and not a natural result of her work. Chapter three (Sapiro) shows Wollstonecraft as a visionary political thinker. Sapiro discusses Wollstonecraft’s struggle to resolve women’s position in the political phase. Sapiro believes that Wollstonecraft never fully settled the issue and remained “bastilled” herself (p.43). Chapter four (Muller) queries “what liberals can learn from” Wollstonecraft (p. 58). Muller believes that Wollstonecraft challenges the premises of classical liberalism and that she demonstrates that women suffered not only from educational hardships but also from economic hardships. Chapter five (Gunther-Canada) discusses the bridge between the first and second Vindications. Gunther-Canada argues that in the first Vindication Wollstonecraft adopts a voice of authority, which confounds the construction of female subservience. By the second Vindication, Wollstonecraft moves the woman from silent object to speaking subject. Chapter six (Poston) looks at Wollstonecraft as an abused child, who wants to see sex and the body eliminated from the political discourse. Chapter 7 (Brody) argues that Wollstonecraft utilizes the rhetorical tradition of Quintilian to subvert “manly” writing and to carve out a position for women in the discourse. Chapter eight (Ferguson) looks at Wollstonecraft’s equation of the subjugation of women with slavery. By creating this parallel, Ferguson believes that Wollstonecraft creates a group, which can be organized, and which can agitate for reform. Chapters nine and ten “trace the evolution of the women’s movement” from Wollstonecraft to the present (p. 112). These two essays explore the status of women in developed and undeveloped countries. Chapter eleven is a fictitious dialogue between Wollstonecraft and Rousseau, which is intended to demonstrate their similar interests in human rights but their divergent points of view on women’s rights. Chapter twelve is a bibliographical essay and annotated bibliography combined, which traces reactions to Wollstonecraft from her time to the present.
(Griffin C L 1994 Rhetoricizing alienation: Mary Wollstonecraft and the rhetorical construction of women's oppression)Griffin, C. L. (1994). Rhetoricizing alienation: Mary Wollstonecraft and the rhetorical construction of women's oppression. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 80, 293-312.
Griffin suggests that feminist scholars do not recognize the significance of rhetoric in Marxism, and in the concept of alienation. She feels that by applying rhetorical principles to the concept of alienation scholars would move beyond the simple material construction of alienation. Griffin states that Wollstonecraft was the first person to write extensively about an alternative conception of alienation involving women’s issues and rights. Griffin seems to see Wollstonecraft locating alienation in something other than material or economic circumstances. In her reading of Wollstonecraft, Griffin believes that Wollstonecraft realized that her text would be
“outside the male experience and that her words might be rejected on this basis alone” (p. 296). Griffin goes on to demonstrate, in terms of materialist theory, how Wollstonecraft attempts to dismantle the entire patriarchal system. According to Griffin, Wollstonecraft begins by attacking the hierarchical structure of reason which she believes men use to subjugate women. Wollstonecraft also questions the concept of intrinsic nature. Wollstonecraft wonders, for example: if passivity and weakness are natural states for women, why are they not left alone to develop them instead of having them forced upon them at an early age? Griffin then draws parallels between Wollstonecraft’s theory and Marx’s philosophy. The basic argument is that Wollstonecraft identifies a system of oppression, before Marx elaborated his theory of social systems.
(Jones V 1992 Women writing revolution: narratives of history and sexuality in Wollstonecraft and Williams)Jones, V. (1992). Women writing revolution: narratives of history and sexuality in Wollstonecraft and Williams. In Stephen Copley and John Whale (Ed.), Beyond romanticism: new approaches to texts and contexts 1780-1832 (pp. 177-99). New York: Routledge.

Jones’ essay focuses on the sexualizing of the historical narrative by Helen Maria Williams and Mary Wollstonecraft. Jones focuses on Williams’ Letters from France and Wollstonecraft’s Historical and moral view. Jones argues that both Letters from France and Historical and moral view: “manifest a double pressure: ideologies of femininity and writing intensify and complicate the general threat to Enlightenment progressivism posed by the Terror” (p. 179). Most conservative male authors responded negatively to the “triple violation of sexual morality and generic decorum as well as national political loyalty” represented in these texts (p. 179). Jones sees sexuality as a site for political struggle, and the conjunction of the “feminine” novel with “masculine” history is an interesting comment on that struggle. Jones argues that Wollstonecraft’s Historical and moral view is written in a style similar to the Richardsonian gothic novel – with Marie Antoinette as the heroine. Jones believes that Wollstonecraft’s systematic attack on Burke is similar to the French revolution in that Burke writes from the position of an aristocrat, while Wollstonecraft represents the working class. Jones concludes that the main contribution of these two writers(Williams and Wollstonecraft) is to have reconceptualized history from a woman’s point of view. They showed the importance of senisbility and sexuality in historical events. They saw women not only as the victims of violence but also as contributors to moral improvement, unlike standard histories, which credit only men with the rational decisions.