#so it wasn't that controversial that many of the biggest novelists were women.
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they cut off my tags on that thoreau post. i wrote like much more of a rant and tumblr didnt even tell me they were cuttin it before i pressed post
#listen. i would've been more concise if you made me#tales from diana#i get so passionate on the topic of pre-nineteenth-century female writers and their systemic exclusion from the literary canon#it drives me up a wall i could truly talk forever and ever about all of these misconceptions#lately the one that gets under my skin is 'look at these (well-remembered) female writers who wrote under a pen name'#my god especially if it's a MALE (or gender-neutral) pen name#first of all. the brontes did not have 'male' pen names. the gender of the bells was not known or presumed#but the assumption is that these ppl were trying to hide their gender rather than many ppl chose not to disclose their identity#bc they didnt want their identity to be known.#also many many many women chose unambiguously feminine pen names. ephelia or astrea or laura or lesbia#(yes very often aping latin/classical conventions)#or what jane austen published her work under initially? A Lady#that's not someone trying to avoid being judged as a woman but someone trying not to be known personally in the world. understandably#and many many early novelists were women. the novel was not a respected art form AT ALL in its early years#so it wasn't that controversial that many of the biggest novelists were women.#as the novel grew in perceived sophistication and respectability. the feminine aspect of its identity waned away slowly#and now the generations of aphra behns and eliza haywoods and fanny burneys and ann radcliffes are forgotten entirely#bc no one cared to preserve it!! THAT is the part of the systemic misogyny#not that zero women ever wrote or published anything. far from it#but it took a considerable amount of resourcefulness and/or privilege to achieve that in the first place#and even with that being accomplished. people did not value it enough to preserve it for future generations#we would not have shakespeare like we do without the first folio. that's a very significant historical fact in his legacy.#we'd have maybe a dozen or so plays. not 38.#but even today you do not go into a bookstore and find the complete works (or even plays) of aphra behn anywhere.#or susanna centlivre or mary pix or hannah cowley#how many people do you know who recognize those names? let alone how many people do you know who have READ their works?#very few. and they are not easy to fucking find anywhere either!#and often unless they've been selected in a series like oxford's world classics (god bless oxford's world classics btw!!!)#you won't find them except from very select sellers and often very expensively#many such early women novelists and playwrights have works so rare you cannot find them duplicated on public access sources
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