Frankenstein's Mothers «Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley»

Two extraordinary women, mother and daughter. Mary Wollstonecraft, early feminist, travel writer, human rights activist. She argued, an outrage back then, that women were capable of reason, all they lacked was education. She wasn't a man-eater, the core thesis of her «Vindication of the Rights of Woman» (published 1792) was measured: «I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves». She married the philosopher William Godwin and died a typical woman's death: complications after the birth of her second daughter, the future writer and author of «Frankenstein», Mary Godwin Shelley. The younger Mary never knew her mother, but she read everything Wollstonecraft ever wrote, and was deeply influenced by the idea of female self-determination. So much so that she eloped with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. She accompanied him in the wet summer of 1816 to Lake Geneva to meet Lord Byron, and during famously gothic thunderstorms the small group spent one of the most productive holidays in literary history – with the teenager Mary creating her «monster» and the first science fiction novel. In this lecture cum discussion course we shall take a closer look at the unconventional lives and legacies of two very special women. Level C1.