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A HISTORY OF WOMEN IN

LITERATURE
A timeline of significant women writers highlighting the writers we will be reading in Language
Arts 11.
Enheduanna
ca. 2285-2250 B.C.E., Sumeria
The worlds earliest known author and poet
Daughter of King Sargon the Great of Sumeria
Wrote hymns and poetry devoted to the gods as well as
political writing to support her father
At her loud cries, the gods of the Land become scared. Her
roaring makes the Anuna gods tremble like a solitary reed.
At her rumbling, they hide all together.
Without Inana great An makes no decisions,
and Enlil determines no destinies. Who opposes the mistress
who raises her head and is supreme over the mountains?
Wherever she ......, cities become ruin mounds and haunted
places, and shrines become waste land. When her wrath
makes people tremble, the burning sensation and the distress
she causes are like an ulu demon ensnaring a man.
(A Hymn to Inana)
Sappho
c. 630 and 612 BC, Greece
One of the few female poets of the era
Little is known about her life, but her poetry has lived on and
made her the most celebrated female poet of the ancient
world
Lived in Lesbos but was eventually exiled to Sicily
Considered a lyricist because she set her poems to music
Created sapphic meter: 4 line stanzas with a specific
structure of syllables
Although they are
only breath, words
which I command
are immortal
-Although they are
Female Historians
Ban Zhao
45 c. 116, China
Chinas most famous
female scholar
Wrote the Book of
Han, a book of
classical Chinese
history
Also write Lessons for
Women , which taught
women to be
submissive
Was a lady-in-waiting
for Empress Deng Sui
and became the
official librarian of the
court
Pamphile of Epidaurus
1
st
century, Greece
Listened to her husband and other people
around her and wrote down everything she
heard
Wrote the history of Greece in 33 books called
Historical Commentaries as well as many other
works and essays
Murasaki Shikibu
978-1014, Japan
Wrote The Tale of Genji, considered the greatest
Japanese novel of all time and the worlds oldest full
novel
Lived during the Heian Period when women were
forbidden from learning Chinese, the language of the
government, but Murasaki learned it from her father
and became fluent
Used a nickname, her real name is unknown
Real things in the darkness seem no realer than
dreams.
-The Tale of Genji
Margery Kempe
c. 1373 after 1438, England
Lived during the reign of the English Kings; Edward III, Richard II and Henry IV
Married John Kempe, had 14 children
Had visions leading her to a nervous breakdown, but was calmed by another vision
Took a vow of chastity and took to wearing white
Would break down weeping during mass
Was illiterate but memorized scripture
Claimed to have conversations with Jesus, Mary, God and others
Left her family to go on pilgrimages led by the voices she believed to be God and Jesus
Dictated her story to male scribes; this became The Book of Margery Kempe, the first
autobiography in English:
On a nygth, as this creatur lay in hir bedde wyth hir husbond, sche herd a sownd of
melodye so swet and delectable, hir thowt, as sche had ben in paradyse. And therwyth
sche styrt owt of hir bedde and seyd, "Alas, that evyr I dede synne, it is ful mery in
hevyn.
On a night, as this creature lay in her bed with her husband, she heard a sound of melody
so sweet and delectable, that she thought she had been in Paradise, and therewith she
started out of her bed and said: "Alas, that ever I did sin! It is full merry in Heaven.

French Feminists
Olympe de Gouges
1748-1793
Began as a playwright but
her interests turned to
politics
Wrote political pamphlets
fighting for an end to
slavery and equal rights for
women
Wrote Declaration of the
Rights of Woman and the
Female Citizen (1791)
Was executed by guillotine
for challenging the
government
Christine de Pizan
1364-1430
Served as a court writer
and was respected as a
poet
Married at 15, was
widowed by 25; wrote to
support herself and her
children
Her work was
concerned with the role
of women in society and
the practice of chivalry
Wrote The Book of the
City of Ladies (1405)
and other works
The Wollstonecrafts
Mary Wollstonecraft

1759-1797
Wrote many different
kinds of books and
political writing
Best known for A
Vindication in the
Rights of Woman
(1792)
Argued that women
were not naturally
inferior, they just
had limited
educational
opportunities
Died 10 days after
giving birth to
Mary Wollstonecraft
Shelley
1797-1851
Courted her fathers
married friend, Percy
Bysshe Shelley, as a
young woman and they
eventually married (after
his first wife committed
suicide)
Spent time with great
authors and poets like
Lord Byron
Wrote the greatest gothic
novel of all time:
Frankenstein: or, The
Modern Prometheus
(1818)
After Percy died in a
boating accident in 1822,
she struggled with
publishing his remaining
work and eventually died
of a brain tumor
The Bront Sisters
Charlotte (1816-1855)
Emily (1818-1848)
Anne (1820-1849)
All were homeschooled or attended different schools at different times,
wrote stories to pass the time
All were employed as teachers or governesses at different times in their
lives
Used masculine names for their poetry collections (Currer, Ellis and Acton)
Charlottes Jane Eyre and Emilys Wuthering Heights are the best known
of the family (Anne wrote Agnes Grey)
Their brother, Branwell, Emily and Anne all died from tuberculosis between
1848-49
Charlotte continued to write until she was taken by tuberculosis as well



Definitive British Authors
Jane Austen
1775-1817
One of the most widely
read authors in English
literature
She wrote comic novels
about society and women
rearranging their lives to
the best outcome
Sense and Sensibility (1811)
Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Mansfield Park (1814)
Emma (1816)
Northanger Abbey (1818)
Persuasion (1818)

George Eliot
Ne Mary Anne Evans
(1819-1880)
One of the leading writers
of the Victorian era
Changed her name to get
published and viewed on
equal terms
Adam Bede (1859)
The Mill on the Floss
(1860)
Silas Marner (1861)
Middlemarch (1871-72)
Daniel Deronda (1876)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
1860-1935, USA
Had a difficult childhood after her father
abandoned the family
Married and suffered a major depression which
inspired The Yellow Wallpaper(1892), her best
known work
Also lectured and wrote the book Women and
Economics (1898)
Established the magazine The Forerunner (1909-
1916
Married a second time in 1900 (to her cousin)
Discovered she had breast cancer in 1934 and
committed suicide in 1935
Virginia Woolf
1882-1941, England
Raised in a privileged household; her father was a historian and author, her mother
was a former painted model and a nurse
She had 3 siblings and 4 half-siblings
Was sexually abused at age 6 by her brothers and lost much of her joie de vivre due to
that and her mothers and half-sisters deaths
Had a nervous breakdown as a teenager
Attended Kings College in London and was introduced to radical feminists
When her father died, she was institutionalized
Hung out with a group of intellectuals and met her husband, Leonard Woolf
Notable works:
Mrs. Dalloway (1925): Basis for Michael Cunninghams 1998 novel and the 2002 film based on
it
To The Lighthouse (1927)
Orlando (1928)
A Room of Ones Own (1929)
The Death of the Moth (1942)
Committed suicide after their home had been bombed in the Blitz and her Jewish
husband had been living in fear of being taken by the Nazis.
Her lifelong pain ended just as tragically as it had always been


Alice Munro
1931-Present, Canada
Won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature for mastering the
short story, Booker Prize and 3 Governor General awards
Redesigned and rejuvenated the art of the short story
Writes about life in Ontario with uncomplicated characters,
using Canadian phrasing and expressions in her work
Lived for some time in Vancouver and Victoria, but returned
to Ontario after her divorce
Some of her best stories:
How I Met My Husband (1974)
The Moons of Jupiter (1982)
The Love of a Good Woman (1998)
Family Furnishings (2001)
Dear Life (2012)
Margaret Atwood
1939-present, Canada
The most respected/famous author in Canadian history:
Booker Prize, Governor Generals Award (x2), founded the
Writers Trust
An advocate for environmentalism and animal rights
Helped to define Canadian culture as unique from other,
larger influences
Poet and novelist
Surfacing (1972)
The Handmaids Tale (1985)
Cats Eye (1988)
The Robber Bride (1993)
Alias Grace (1996)
The Blind Assassin (2000)
Oryx and Crake (2003)
The Year of the Flood (2009)
Jamaica Kincaid
Ne Elaine Richardson, 1949-Present, Antigua/USA
Grew up in poverty in Antigua, educated in the British system
(Antigua gained independence in 1981)
Sent to New York at 17 to work as an au pair to support the family
(recounted in her book Lucy), but she refused to send money home
Married Allen Shawn, a professor, in 1979 and divorced in 2002
Changed her name in 1973 as she started writing for teen magazines
Eventually got published in The New Yorker and The Paris Review
Notable works:
Annie John (1997)
A Small Place (2000)
Lucy (2002)

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