Women's literature

“ They were suggested by the fact that nearly all the best contributions of women to literature have been made during the last hundred years, and simultaneously with this remarkable development of literary activity among women, there has been an equally remarkable activity in spheres of work held to be peculiarly feminine. ”

“ The annotations have been edited, but readers must consult Novels in English for sources of the reviews. Indexed by titles. Although neither comprehensive nor based on firsthand knowledge of the works, Toward a Feminist Tradition is nonetheless an important source for studying attitudes toward women, especially in British novels. ”

“ She is as far from realism as an “unromantic” writer can well be; and, by sheer force of will or vividness of imagination, compels and fascinates us to accept, as worthy of study and full of interest, the characters she has created.
And because, as has been often noticed, women are—curiously enough—not usually pre-eminent in imagination, her work remains supreme for certain qualities, which we may vainly seek elsewhere in English literature. ”

“ Far from being ashamed that so little has been done by female abilities in science and useful literature, I am surprised that so much has been effected. On natural history, on criticism, on moral philosophy, on education, they have written with elegance, eloquence, precision, and ingenuity. Your complaint that women do not turn their attention to useful literature is surely ill-timed. ”

“ A lifetime would not exhaust those treasures of delight supplied by English genius alone. Not only have we men gifted with the highest attributes of mind, writing entertaining, instructive, suggestive, Christian, and progressive books; but women in every department of literature have taken up, not by courtesy, but by right, a full and conspicuous place. ”

“ Such minds will not be offended in the perusal of the literature of the seventeenth century by finding women wielding the pen for the instruction or the edification of elect circles of superior intellects or to please the vulgar taste of the common people. Excepting as writers of occasional verse or of memoirs, the names of few female authors appear in the literary annals of the period. ”

“ The picture of woman's life, as it has been developed from the times of the earliest traditions to the present date, is here displayed in vivid and impressive colors, and with a living sympathy which could only flow from a feminine pen. A judicious selection from the writings of women who have obtained distinction in the walks of literature is presented, affording an opportunity for comparing the noblest productions of the female mind, and embracing many exquisite gems of fancy and feeling. ”

“ It is an old saying that "there is nothing new under the sun"; and it may surprise some readers to learn that the feminine preponderance in the fiction of the present, and even the growing tendency to laud precocity in authorship, are not without warrant in the earlier history of our nation's literature. ”

“ The intellect was keen, comprehensive, and discriminating. In these hollow times, the female world teems with fantastic puppets of affectation and vanity, but here we have no creature of carnality, but an intelligent woman, with large reflective powers. A refined ideality was early developed, and carefully cultivated by the thorough mastering of our best literature, and especially of our best poetry. ”

“ I mean the field of art and literature. Let it be admitted, at once and without hesitation, that women have not made much of a mark in art and literature; that whatever we may achieve in the future we have given little of achievement to the past. Women artists of the first rank in whatever medium—in words, in music, in colour, in form—there have been none ”

“ The literature of any {335} period reflects the interest of the women in it and, as interest is itself an index of intellectual development, Thirteenth Century literature must be taken as the vivid reflection of the cultural character of the women of the time, and this is of itself the highest possible tribute to their intelligence and education. ”

“ And yet those women—the sweet and gracious ornaments of a self-respecting society—were full of spirit, of modest pride in their position, were familiar with much good literature, could converse with piquancy and understanding on subjects of general interest, were trained in the subtleties of a solid theology, and bore themselves in any company with that traditional breeding which we associate with the name of lady. ”

“ To interpret the feminine side of life is her legitimate province as a literary artist.
If we regard literature as the expression of the emotions, the whims, the caprices, the enthusiasms, the fluctuating idealisms which move each epoch, we shall not be far wrong; and inasmuch as women necessarily take part in these things, they ought to give them their expression. ”

“ With this sexual factor existing in brain-structure, can woman ever hope, in entering the field of man's labor, to do his work in man's way? Will she write sermons, draw up a brief, or treat disease with the same facts before her, in the way of man? I do not believe I show disrespect to the sex when I answer, No. Women in literature have occupied a distinctive place. ”

“ For vivid description of natural scenery and rural English life, minute analysis of character, and psychological insight she has never been surpassed by men; while for learning and profundity she has never been equalled by women,--a deep, serious, sad writer, without vanity or egotism or pretension; a great but not always sound teacher, who, by common consent and prediction, will live and rank among the classical authors in English literature. ”

“ Many other women he mentions whose attainments in literature, philosophy, and eloquence did honor to their sex and placed them on a level with the great men of their time. This was in the late days of the Republic, when genuine talent was not yet swamped in the pretensions of mediocrity. ”

“ Another consideration which is not sufficiently borne in mind in feminist literature—whence, no doubt, arises much of its vagueness and impracticability—is that there is not one women's problem, but many women's problems. ”

“ Women are by nature and training more subtle observers of these social nuances and refined waverings of the heart than any others but men of rare genius. The field is a small and home-like area, the requirements are mainly those of graceful intuition, the tone must be pure, lady-like, subdued. In this sphere it is plain that women have a marked superiority ”

“ In literature and art, which have their own special histories, where the part that women have played is recounted at length, only a few general points have been noted in order to show how women have stood in relation to letters and art in successive periods. ”

“ In fiction our women writers have long since abandoned sweet seventeen as a heroine, and even men writers, slowest of all to observe such changes, have, during the last five years or so, recognised that at that favoured age girls are nowadays too much absorbed in preparing for senior locals and college entrance examinations to offer useful material for romantic literature. ”

“ The increase—be it said with all due chivalry—of feminine influence and activity alike in society and literature; women, generally speaking, showing but a moderate interest in great issues in public life, and finding their satisfaction, so far as reading is concerned, in prose romances, newspapers, and short lyrics. ”

“ While the vast majority of literary women have been writers of fiction, every branch of literature numbers in its promoters the names of eminent females. In poetry and in dramatic literature women have not achieved the fame of men. ”

“ A literature composed chiefly by women for women,—tons of wood pulp, miles of linen covers, rivers of ink,—all to feed the prevailing taste, like the ribbons, the jewels, the candy, the theatre tickets! A great age, as Mr. Gossom, swelling with pride, would have said, and a great people, that has standardized its pleasures and has them marketed in convenient packages for all tastes! An age of women's ideals, a literature by women for women! ... Isabelle bought a copy of Mr. ”

“ In England there were not many women artists, although in literature the sex was not without its share of laurels, and in dramatic poetry and prose romance women contended for appreciation with masculine writers. ”

“ To write feuilletons, romances, and poetry, is all very well; but to preside over a drawing-room, like the women of the eighteenth century, has also its merit. But we must not blame [Pg 382] the female sex alone for the loss of that supremacy which once belonged to French society. ”

“ How far the expectation has been realized that women, in fiction, for instance, would be more accurately described, better understood, and appear as nobler and lovelier beings when women wrote the novels, this is not the place to inquire. ”

“ Is this a strong statement, a libel upon the female sex? But you read novel after novel in which the larger number of women—all, perhaps, except the heroine—are represented as artful, sly, deceitful, managing; and generally the main object of their artifice is to secure a husband for themselves or for their daughters: yet you do not at once cry out in indignant protest against such misrepresentation. On the contrary, you follow the plot with lively interest, think the author has a very clear insight into human nature, and especially excels in the delineation of female character! ”

“ It is difficult to prove such a statement as this, for the sentiments upon which individual opinion of the subject is based hardly admit of exact statement, but that there is an accepted standard of female excellence, and that the women who realize it are not rare exceptions, can, I think, be shown by the study of female character as depicted by dramatists, novelists, and poets. ”

“ But the fact remains that it was largely through the inspired vision, which looked past the entanglements of sense into the pure heart and transparent soul of an idealized womanhood, that the long-enduring sex came into its intellectual kingdom. To the old ties of interest, passion, and habit, were added those of the intellect and spirit. In this new contact of intelligences society had its birth, women took their rightful places, and the world found a new regenerating force. ”

“ If that is true, shall we not then expect a future more largely influenced by women to have more of the hard, matter-of-fact quality, the splendid realism characteristic of woman "when she is herself"? ”

“ No woman ever wrote a great drama; not one of the world's great poems came from a woman's hand. In their own domain of fiction women have been, and occasionally are, great realists, great portrait-painters, great masters of style, great psychologists—but not great inventors, and very seldom inventors at all. ”

“ There are certain words, suggestive rather than descriptive, the value of which lies in their very vagueness and elasticity of interpretation, by which each mind can write its own commentary, each imagination sketch out its own illustration. And one of these is Womanliness; a word infinitely more subtle in meaning, with more possibilities of definition, more light and shade, more facets, more phases, than the corresponding word manliness. This indeed must necessarily be so, since the character of women is so much more varied in colour and more delicate in its many shades than that of men. ”

“ Looking and listening, "Here," thought I, "is another jewel in the crown of womanhood, to radiate and glorify the lives of all." I have such an intense pride of sex that the triumphs of woman in art, literature, oratory, science, or song rouse my enthusiasm as nothing else can. ”

“ Not very many years ago a contributor to the "Westminster Review" asserted seriously that "the greater affectionateness" of women enabled them to write stories, and that "the domestic experiences, which form the bulk of their knowledge, find an appropriate place in novels. The very nature of fiction calls for that predominance of sentiment which befits the feminine mind." ”

“ Speaking, then, as one of the common herd—the public—I ask myself why it is that as a rule woman's art leaves me cold, woman's literature unconvinced, dissatisfied, and even irritated? And the only answer I can find is that they are artificial; that they are not a representation of life or beauty seen by a woman's eyes, but an attempt to render life or beauty as man desires that a woman should see and render it. ”

“ Why shouldn’t a book about women, or about a type of women, take for its subject some of the actual thoughts and doings of women like ourselves? Why should such a book be centralized and bound down to a single theme, a single conflict, a single heroine? ”

“ It is an attitude which, discovered in the Middle Ages, has added a new glamour to existence. To woman as a superior being, a divinity, one may look for inspiration—and receive it. For those who cannot be fired by an abstract idea, she gives to imagination "some pure light in human form to fix it." ”

“ In this century, in which women have so much wider scope, when they may paint, carve, act, sing, write, enter professional life, or do whatever talent and inclination dictate, without loss of dignity or prestige, unless they do it ill,—and perhaps even this exception is a trifle superfluous,—it is difficult to understand fully, or estimate correctly, a society in which the best feminine intellect was centered upon the art of entertaining and of wielding an indirect power through the minds of men. ”