Research Paper on:
Feminine Literary Ideal

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
Gottlieb and Marie Elena, this ideal has been more than the literal definition and the somewhat conflicting analysis of feminine influence, but rather has come to epitomize the womans role  to influence great works of literature in the past as well as the present. Through the feminine example of Beatrice from Dantes Inferno, a clearer view and example of the  feminine ideal can be gained, and through it see how spiritual transformation is depicted using this ideal. Despite the rise and fall of hemlines, there has been one constant that  women could depend upon over the centuries: the male driven society would always have a certain physical and even intellectual ideal predetermined for their women, and in attaining this predetermined  ideal, women would gain admiration and respect. Mary Wollstonecrafts A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, a manifesto on femininity from the Romantic era of British Literature, describes the  feminine ideal as, "a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to puerile kind of propriety, ... the protection of  a man" (Wollstonecraft 19). Mary Wollstonecraft, herself, if her biographies are to be believed would have railed against the feminine ideals of her day and age. During  her day and age, women were of two types, generally speaking: bad and good. The good were set upon pedestals and were seen as the symbols for virtue and all  good human characteristics, even if they didnt have a soul, as stated by the Catholic Church. The bad women were base and even more sub-human than their virtuous counterparts. Therefore,  spiritual transformation was seen portrayed in literature as the good woman coming to the aid, succor or rescue of the male hero, such as happens in the Inferno. The