A HISTORY OF WOMEN IN

LITERATURE
A timeline of significant women writers.

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 theAnunagods tremble like a solitary
reed. At her rumbling, they hide all together.
WithoutInanagreatAnmakes no decisions,
andEnlildetermines 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 anuludemon
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
Pamphile of Epidaurus

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

1st 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 (187172)
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)