【简译】玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特（Mary Wollstonecraft）
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was an Enlightenment philosopher who, as author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, is widely credited as the founder of feminism. Wollstonecraft called for equal education opportunities for men and women, and she stressed the benefits to society as a whole of improving the situation of women in this and other areas of daily life.
玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特（Mary Wollstonecraft，1759-1797 年）是一位启蒙哲学家，作为《女权辩护：关于政治和道德问题的批评》（A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects）的作者，她被公认为女权主义的创始人。沃斯通克拉夫特呼吁男女享有平等的受教育机会，她还强调了改善女性在日常生活和其他领域的状况会给整个社会带来益处。
早期生活
Mary Wollstonecraft was born on 27 April 1759 in London into a farming family suffering difficult circumstance, largely due to her father's actions. Mary's father was a brutal man, and Mary was essentially self-taught. To make her own way in life, Mary faced the significant challenge that the possibilities were severely limited due to the social conventions of the period. Mary was determined to improve the fortunes of her family, and so she found work as a companion to a wealthy lady who lived in Bath and as a governess for the children of another wealthy patron, Mr Kingsborough, an Irish landowner. More ambitiously, in 1784, Mary created and managed her own nonconformist school. This enterprise, located in Newington Green (then outside London), also involved Mary's sisters, but unfortunately, it was not a lasting success.
1759 年 4 月 27 日，玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特出生在伦敦一个农民家庭，家庭条件艰苦，很大程度上是由她父亲造成的。玛丽的父亲是个残暴的人，她基本上是自学成才。为了开创自己的人生道路，玛丽面临着巨大的挑战，因为当时的社会习俗严重限制了她的发展空间。玛丽决心改善家庭的命运，因此她找到了一份工作，给一位住在巴斯的富裕女士当女佣，还为另一位富裕的赞助人、爱尔兰地主金斯伯勒先生的孩子当家庭教师。1784 年，玛丽雄心勃勃地创建并管理了自己的非教会学校。这所学校位于纽因顿格林（当时在伦敦郊外），玛丽的姐妹们也参与其中，但不幸的是，这所学校并没有取得持久的成功。
成功的作家
Wollstonecraft was keen to challenge the social conventions of her day, which resulted in young women not having the same educational, work, and social opportunities as men. She wrote her Thoughts on the Education of Daughters in 1787, which was published by Joseph Johnson, who became her long-time publisher. The current situation was that girls were given a basic education, but there were no secondary schools since they did not need any preparation for colleges and universities because they were not permitted to enter higher education. The only girls who received an education anything like that open to boys were those whose wealthy fathers decided to employ private tutors for the purpose. Wollstonecraft proposed radically changing this situation.
玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特热衷于挑战当时的社会习俗，这些习俗导致年轻女性无法获得与男性同等的教育、工作和社交机会。她于 1787 年撰写了《女教论》（Thoughts on the education of daughters: with reflections on female conduct, in the more important duties of life），该书由约瑟夫·约翰逊（Joseph Johnson）出版，约翰逊也成为她的长期出版商。当时的情况是，女孩可以接受基础教育，但没有中学，因为她们不需要为进入学院和大学做任何准备，且不被允许接受高等教育。只有那些富有的父亲决定聘请私人教师的女孩才能接受与男孩类似的教育。玛丽建议从根本上改变这种状况。
Wollstonecraft was not the first author to demand better rights for women. Marie Le Jars de Gournay (1565-1645), known as an expert in alchemy, had written The Equality of Men and Women, which was published in 1622. François Poullain de la Barre (1647-1723) had proposed similar ideas in his The Equality of the Sexes, published in 1673 in French and then translated into English in 1677. Many of the ladies who managed the salons of Paris, where intellectuals of both sexes mingled in an informal setting, had made similar calls for greater equality. Education for women, in particular, had preoccupied many of the scientists of the Scientific Revolution, too. Bathsua Makin (c. 1612 to c. 1674) had proposed that women should be given access to a scientific education. Despite these calls by some intellectuals, not much had been achieved in practical terms. Further, women intellectuals still faced ridicule from many of their male counterparts, as can be seen in such satires as The Learned Ladies by the playwright Molière (1622-1673), first staged in 1672.
玛丽并不是第一位要求提高女性权利的作家。被誉为“炼金术专家”的玛丽·德·古纳（Marie de Gournay）（1565-1645 年）撰写的《男女平等》（Égalité des Hommes et des Femmes）于 1622 年出版。浦兰·德·拉巴尔（ François Poullain de La Barre）（1647-1723 年）在 1673 年出版的法文版《论两性平等》（De l’égalité des deux sexes）中提出了类似的观点，该书于 1677 年被翻译成英文。巴黎的沙龙是男女知识分子非正式交流的场所，许多管理沙龙的女士也曾发出过类似的呼吁，要求实现更广泛的平等。科学革命时期的许多科学家也一直在关注女性教育问题。巴苏亚·梅金（Bathsua Makin）（约 1612 年至约 1674 年）建议女性应该有机会接受科学教育。尽管一些知识分子发出了这些呼吁，但实际取得的成果并不多。此外，女性知识分子仍然面临着许多男性同行的嘲笑，这一点可以从剧作家莫里哀（Molière，1622-1673）于 1672 年首次上演的讽刺剧《博学的女士们》（The Learned Ladies）中看出。
The fledgling feminist movement was gaining momentum, though, and Wollstonecraft gave it a tremendous new drive. She continued the battle, along with other female writers, against the male misogynistic view that women were intellectually inferior to men and less capable than males of maintaining good morals. This negative view of women was even expounded by such prominent thinkers as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778).
然而，刚刚起步的女权运动正蓄势待发，沃斯通克拉夫特为其注入了巨大的新动力。她与其他女作家一起，继续与男性厌恶女性的观点作斗争，这种观点认为女性在智力上不如男性，在保持良好道德方面也不如男性。这种对女性的负面看法甚至被让·雅克·卢梭（Jean-Jacques Rousseau，1712-1778）等著名思想家所阐述。
Wollstonecraft moved to London in 1787 to further pursue her career as a writer. Johnson secured her a post as a permanent writer of reviews for the journal he ran, Analytical Review. Wollstonecraft also worked as a translator, published a text for education, Original Stories from Real Life, and wrote a novel, Mary, or the Wrongs of Women (aka Mary: A Fiction), which was not published until 1798. Through Johnson, Wollstonecraft met other writers and artists, notably the Romantic poet William Blake (1757-1827), the Swiss painter Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), the biblical scholar Alexander Geddes (1737-1802), and Thomas Paine (1737-1809), the philosopher, revolutionary, and Founding Father of the United States. One writer who caught more than Wollstonecraft's intellectual interest was the radical author William Godwin (1756-1836). Godwin was also a political philosopher, and the couple's mutual interest in reform blossomed into a romantic relationship; the couple married in 1797.
1787 年，玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特搬到伦敦，继续她的作家生涯。约翰逊为她争取到了一个职位，让她在自己经营的杂志《分析评论》上长期撰写评论。玛丽还从事翻译工作，出版了教育读物《真实生活的原创故事》，并创作了小说《玛丽：女人之罪》（又名《玛丽：一部小说》），这部小说直到 1798 年才出版。通过约翰逊，玛丽结识了其他作家和艺术家，特别是浪漫主义诗人威廉·布莱克（William Blake，1757-1827 年）、瑞士画家约翰·亨利希·菲斯利（Henry Fuseli，1741-1825 年）、圣经学者亚历山大·格迪斯（Alexander Geddes，1737-1802 年）以及哲学家、革命家和美国国父托马斯·潘恩（Thomas Paine，1737-1809 年）。激进作家威廉·戈德温（William Godwin，1756-1836 年）引起玛丽的注意。戈德温也是一位政治哲学家，这对夫妇对改革的共同兴趣发展成了浪漫的关系，他们于 1797 年结婚。
Given this circle of associates, it is not surprising that Wollstonecraft turned to political philosophy and revolutionary ideas. In 1790, Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Men, a critical response to Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke (1729-1797), which contained Burke's defence of institutions and time-tested traditions. Wollstonecraft ridiculed the veneration of precisely those institutions which were holding women back. She memorably describes the House of Commons as very often resembling a "beer-garden" (Robertson, 739) and the periodic elections to that house as "scenes of drunken riot and beastly gluttony" (ibid). Unimpressed with what she regarded as Burke's backward-looking stance, Wollstonecraft summarised his view as giving "reverence to the rust of antiquity" (ibid). Wollstonecraft maintained a much more positive attitude to progress than thinkers like Burke, and her chief interest remained the task of convincing men of the necessity for improving women's rights. Accordingly, she now set about writing her most famous work on that subject.
有了这个伙伴圈子，玛丽转向政治哲学和革命思想也就不足为奇了。1790 年，玛丽出版了《人权辩护》，这是对埃德蒙·伯克（Edmund Burke，1729-1797 年）的《对法国大革命的反思》（Reflections on the Revolution in France）的批判性回应。玛丽嘲笑的正是那些阻碍女性发展的制度。她描述下议院经常像一个 “啤酒花园”（Robertson, 739），而下议院的定期选举则是“醉酒骚乱和野兽般的饕餮”（同上）。玛丽对伯克落后的立场不以为然，她将伯克的观点概括为“对古代锈迹的敬畏”（同上）。与伯克等思想家相比，玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特对进步持更加积极的态度，她的主要兴趣仍然是说服男性必须改善女性的权利。因此，她开始着手撰写在这方面（最著名）的作品。
女性权利
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was published in 1792. Wollstonecraft here proposed again that men and women should receive the same educational opportunities. Further, she "criticized the formal and informal limitations imposed on women in contemporary society, and demanded that the rights being newly acquired by men be extended to women also" (Burns, 436). Wollstonecraft even went so far as to state that the current state of women's education was a deliberate attempt to reduce their capabilities, a policy of what we might describe as "keep them in their place". Women were being treated as mere decorative appendages to men's lives, and their value in society was far too dependent on their looks or on restricted roles such as motherhood, Wollstonecraft argued. Women were also, because they had only very limited educational and employment opportunities, being pushed by society into marriages in order to gain the financial support they needed to live, a situation Wollstonecraft describes as ‘legal prostitution'. Women needed more opportunities to be able to fulfill themselves, employ the reason they possessed (which was the same as any man possessed, she argued), and be happier in their lives in general. She also points out the advantages to society as a whole of not wasting the talents of half the population. Wollstonecraft argued that women should have some sort of political representation and that they should be allowed into what were then male-only professions such as medicine and commerce.
1792 年玛丽出版了《女权辩护》。她在该书中再次提出，男女应享有同等的教育机会。此外，她“批评了当代社会对女性施加的正式和非正式限制，并要求将男性新近获得的权利也赋予女性”（Burns, 436）。玛丽甚至指出，当前女性的教育状况是在蓄意削弱她们的能力，这是一种我们可以称之为“让她们留在自己的位置”的政策。她认为，女性仅仅被当作男人生活中的装饰品，她们在社会中的价值过于依赖于她们的容貌或受限制的角色，如母亲。此外，由于女性受教育和就业的机会非常有限，她们被社会推向婚姻，以获得生活所需的经济支持，玛丽将这种情况描述为“合法卖淫”。女性需要更多的机会来实现自我，运用她们所拥有的理性（她认为这与任何男人所拥有的理性是一样的），并在生活中更加幸福。她还指出，不浪费一半人口的才能对整个社会都有好处。她还认为，女性应该有一定的政治代表权，应该允许她们从事当时只有男性才能从事的职业，如医学和商业。
Wollstonecraft makes a powerful summary aimed at the ears of men in the final paragraph of chapter nine of her book:
Would men but generously snap our chains, and be content with rational fellowship, instead of slavish obedience, they would find us more observant daughters, more affectionate sisters, more faithful wives, more reasonable mothers—in a word, better citizens. We should then love them with true affection, because we should learn to respect ourselves; and the peace of mind of a worthy man would not be interrupted by the idle vanity of his wife, nor his babes sent to nestle in a strange bosom, having never found a home in their mother's.
玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特在书中第九章最后一段针对男人做了有力的总结：
如果男人们能慷慨地解下我们的枷锁，满足于理性的交往，而不是奴颜婢膝的顺从，他们就会发现我们是更守规矩的女儿、更有感情的姐妹、更忠诚的妻子、更通情达理的母亲。总之，是更好的公民。到那时，我们会以真正的感情去爱他们，因为我们应该学会尊重自己；一个有价值的人的心灵平静不会被他妻子无所事事的虚荣心所打扰，他的孩子也不会被送到一个陌生的怀抱中依偎，因为他们从未在母亲的怀抱中找到过家的感觉。
Wollstonecraft gives a final and succinct plea at the very end of the book:
Let woman share the rights, and she will emulate the virtues of man.
玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特在书的最后给出了最后简洁的恳求：
让女人分享权利，她就会效仿男人的美德。
The book caused controversy since its ideas were radical indeed, but it sold very well. Alas, Wollstonecraft's ideas were not adopted by those with the power to make them a reality.
这本书引起了争议，因为它的思想确实激进，但销量却非常好。可惜的是，玛丽的观点并没有被那些有能力将其变为现实的人采纳。
法国大革命
Wollstonecraft was keen to see for herself the tremendous upheaval going on in France, and so she went to live in Paris as 1792 came to a close. The result of her observations of the ongoing French Revolution (1789-1799), which witnessed the end of the French monarchy, were published in 1794 in her book An Historical and Moral View of Origins and Progress of the French Revolution.
玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特非常想亲眼目睹法国发生的巨大动荡，因此在 1792 年即将结束时，她前往巴黎居住。她对法国大革命（1789-1799 年）的观察结果于 1794 年发表在她的《法国大革命起源和进展的历史观和道德观》（An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution; and the Effect It Has produced in Europe）一书中。
While in Paris, Wollstonecraft conducted an affair with Gilbert Imlay, an American businessman. The couple had a daughter together (Fanny, b. 1794) and briefly travelled through various Scandinavian countries. Wollstonecraft wrote of her experience in Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, published in 1796. In the following passage, she describes in detail her thoughts on the sublime, then a growing concept in aesthetics where there is a blending of emotion and reason in a single experience:
Reaching the cascade, or rather cataract, the roaring of which had a long time announced its vicinity, my soul was hurried by the falls into a new train of reflections. The impetuous dashing of the rebounding torrent from the dark cavities which mocked the exploring eye, produced an equal activity in my mind: my thoughts darted from earth to heaven, and I asked myself why I was chained to life and its misery? Still the tumultuous emotions this sublime object excited, were pleasurable; and, viewing it, my soul rose, with renewed dignity, above its cares – grasping at immortality – it seemed as impossible to stop the current of my thoughts, as of the always varying, still the same, torrent before me – I stretched out my hand to eternity, bounding over the dark speck of life to come. (Robertson, 510)
在巴黎期间，玛丽与美国商人吉尔伯特·伊姆莱（Gilbert Imlay）发生了婚外情。这对夫妇育有一女（芬妮，生于 1794 年），并曾短暂旅行过斯堪的纳维亚各国。玛丽在 1796 年出版的《瑞典、挪威和丹麦书简》中记述了她的经历。在下面这段文字中，她详细描述了自己对“崇高”的看法，“崇高”是当时美学中一个不断发展的概念，在这种体验中，情感和理性融为一体：
到达瀑布时，瀑布的轰鸣声早已宣告了它的临近，我的灵魂被瀑布急速带入了一连串新的思考。我的思绪从人间飞到了天堂，我问自己为什么要被生活和苦难所束缚？然而，这个崇高的对象所激起的骚动情绪还是令人愉悦的；看着它，我的灵魂以新的尊严升起，超越了烦恼（抓住了不朽）我的思绪似乎无法停止，就像我面前的这股始终不断变化、却又亘古不变的洪流一样，我向永恒伸出手，跨越未来生命的黑暗点。(罗伯逊，510 页）
Wollstonecraft returned to London, but after the break-up with Imlay, she was driven to attempt suicide; she survived. All of these events caused a public scandal. A new relationship then began with William Godwin from 1796, as noted above. The couple married just before their child was born, a daughter who became better known as Mary Shelley (1797-1851) and who wrote the celebrated gothic novel Frankenstein (1818).
玛丽回到伦敦，但在与伊姆莱分手后，她被迫试图自杀，但幸免于难。这些事件都引发了公众丑闻。如上所述，从 1796 年起，玛丽开始了与威廉·戈德温的新恋情。这对夫妇在他们的孩子出生前结了婚，他们的女儿就是后来广为人知的玛丽·雪莱（Mary Shelley，1797-1851 年），她创作了著名的哥特式小说《弗兰肯斯坦》（Frankenstein，1818 年）。
玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特的主要作品
Mary Wollstonecraft's most important works include:
Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787)
Original Stories from Real Life (1788)
Mary, or the Wrongs of Women (1788)
A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
An Historical and Moral View of Origins and Progress of the French Revolution (1794)
Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796)
玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特最重要的作品包括：
《女教论》（1787 年）
《真实生活的原创故事》（1788 年）
《玛丽：女人之罪》（1788 年）
《人权辩护——致埃德蒙·伯克阁下的一封信》（1790 年）
《女权辩护——关于政治和道德问题的批评》（1792 年）
《法国大革命起源和进展的历史观和道德观》（1794 年）
《瑞典、挪威和丹麦书简》 (1796)
离世与遗产
Mary Wollstonecraft died in London on 10 September 1797, ten days after giving birth to her daughter. Wollstonecraft proved an inspiration, particularly from the mid-19th century in the United States, to later leaders of the women's rights movement such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) and Margaret Fuller (1810-1850). Early biographies of Wollstonecraft tended to overemphasise her tumultuous non-marital relationships. A more balanced view was given in Godwin's biography of his wife which was first published in 1798. Thankfully, Wollstonecraft's ideas on equality rather than her personal life have been her lasting legacy. In 2006, the British cultural commentator Melvyn Bragg placed A Vindication of the Rights of Woman on his list of 12 books that changed the world.
1797 年 9 月 10 日，玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特在生下女儿十天后于伦敦去世。事实证明，玛丽激励了后来的女权运动领袖，如伊丽莎白·卡迪·斯坦顿（Elizabeth Cady Stanton，1815-1902 年）和玛格丽特·富勒（Margaret Fuller，1810-1850 年），尤其是在 19 世纪中期的美国。玛丽早期的传记往往过分强调她动荡的非婚姻关系。戈德温于 1798 年首次出版的《女权辩护作者回忆录》对她的评价较为中肯。值得庆幸的是，玛丽的平等思想成为了她的永久遗产。2006 年，英国文化评论家梅尔文·布拉格（Melvyn Bragg）将《女权辩护》列入他的 12 本改变世界的书籍名单。
参考书目：
lackburn, Simon. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford University Press, 2016.
Burns, William E. The Scientific Revolution. ABC-CLIO, 2001.
Chisick, Harvey. Historical Dictionary of the Enlightenment. Scarecrow Press, 2005.
Robertson, Ritchie. The Enlightenment. Harper, 2021.
The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Vindication of the Rights of WomanWith Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, by Mary WollstonecraftAccessed 6 Dec 2023.
Yolton, John W. & Rogers, Pat & Porter, Roy & Stafford, Barbara. A Companion to the Enlightenment. Wiley-Blackwell, 1991.
原文作者：Mark Cartwright
驻意大利的历史作家。他的主要兴趣包括陶瓷、建筑、世界神话和发现所有文明的共同思想。他拥有政治哲学硕士学位，是《世界历史百科全书》的出版总监。
原文网址: https://www.worldhistory.org/Mary_Wollstonecraft/
