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Essay / Margaret Fuller - A Feminist Spirit on Fire - 2371
Margaret Fuller was a journalist, critic, and women's rights activist associated with the American transcendental movement. She was the first full-time female book reviewer in journalism. Her book Woman in the Nineteenth Century is considered the first major feminist work in the United States. was an early proponent of feminism and particularly believed in the education of women. Once equal educational rights were granted to women, she believed, women could also push for equal political rights.[114] She advocated that women pursue any job they wanted, rather than settling for the stereotypical "feminine" roles of the time, such as teaching. She once said: "If you ask me what position women should hold, I answer: any... let them be captains of a ship if you want." I have no doubt that there are women well prepared for such a role.”[115] She had great confidence in all women, but doubted whether any woman could produce any lasting work of art or literature in her time[116] and did not like the popular poets of her time.[117] Fuller also warned women to be careful in marriage and not become dependent on their husbands. As she writes: “I wish the woman to live, first of all for the love of God. Then, she will not make an imperfect man for her god and will not thus sink into idolatry. Then, she will not take what does not suit her out of a feeling of weakness. and poverty" Emerson was the source of the transcendental wave of spirituality. His pages are permeated with it and all we hear is the soul and the oversoul. This also happens to Margaret Fuller. Her life can be seen as an effort to find what she called the "sovereign self. The key to her character and the secret of her strong individual influence and fiery sympathies was this same quality of soul...... middle." paper...... call it, a respectable place among the masculine dimension of writers. It is also true that literary women lacked any grossly tangible power and that they were careful not to claim it. From this they wished to exert an influence, which they considered to be a supreme force. They asked for nothing more than casual attention, and not even much: the influence had to be discreetly omnipresent and omnipotent. indeed exerted this influence through literature in the process of becoming a mass media. Women continually attempted to stabilize and present in their work the values that put their position in the most appropriate light. Margaret Fuller had a reputation as one of the most widely read authors of late 19th century England, even though she lived in a society that did not encourage female intellectuals...