Talk:Women's writing in English

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This article is pretty wide-ranging right now. I intend to post a separate piece on the exemplary tradition and when I do will move over the related resources to the new article. scribblingwoman 21:16, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Review

• Women's writing as a discrete area of literary studies is based on the notion that the experience of women, historically, has been shaped by their gender, and so women writers by definition are a group worthy of separate study. - does this sentence need "by definition", how about "shaped by their gender, therefore women writers as a group are worthy of study."
• It is not a question of the subject matter or political stance of a particular author, but of her gender: her position as a woman within the literary marketplace. Also, I wonder about using gender here. I know this is a contentious debate, but are you separating these writers by their gender or by their sex? It seems to me that you are separating them by their sex (see second clause). Their are no male writers here. Their gender may have been socially constructed, but there are still only female writers here. Just a thought.
• Women's writing, as a discrete area of literary studies, is recognized implicitly by large numbers of dedicated journals, awards, and conferences which focus mainly or exclusively on texts produced by women. - I would say "explicitly." Also, a tad awkwardly worded.
• British writers, as in so many other instances, embraced the classical models and made them their own. - someone unfamiliar with literary history might not know what those "other instances" are - you might mention one or two
• I would suggest dividing the "History" section into subsections (wikipedia likes small sections). The first might be "Catalogues of Exemplary Women" or something like that. You might also consider describing these catalogues a little more for people who are unfamiliar with them.
• You might also explain why women became "lost" writers - why they were written out of literary history. There are many famous examples. Anna Laetitia Barbauld comes to my mind since I just wrote this page on her.
• Virgina Blain "et al." - who are the et al?
• The widespread interest in women's writing developed alongside, influenced, and was influenced by, a general reassessment and expansion of the literary canon. Interest in post-colonial literatures, gay and lesbian literature, writing by people of colour, working people's writing, and the cultural productions of other historically marginalized groups has resulted in a whole scale expansion of what is considered "literature," and genres hitherto not regarded as "literary," such as children's writing, journals, letters, travel writing, and many others[8] are now the subjects of scholarly interest. Most genres and sub-genres have undergone a similar analysis, so that one now sees work on the "female gothic"[9] or women's science fiction, for example. - I know exactly what tradition you are referring to here, but you have condensed thirty years of critical revisionism into one paragraph. I'm not sure that that is entirely possible. For someone unfamiliar with this story, I am not sure that you have included enough information.
• I think that you should move all of the lists to some other "Lists" page as it clutters the page. You should probably cut down on the internal links as well.
• I think that you could include even more detail on differing interpretations of the field - what makes a woman writer a woman writer. This would allow you to explain the history of the field in more detail as well. Gilbert and Gubar really should be mentioned, for example.
• I was left wondering why you decided to tell the history of the field and not also the history of women's writing itself. I definitely think that this should be included - in fact, I would think that this would be the main focus of the page, given its title "Women's Writing in English History" (as it stands, it is more like "Women's Writing in Literary Studes"). The history of the interpretation and reception of women's writing is a part of the history of women's writing but is not the major focus, in my opinion. Also, I would try to de-emphasize the non-English history you present as that is not the focus of the page. Classical and European sources are important and relevant here, but should not dominate the narrative. This is a very important page and I'm glad that you've undertaken to write it - I hope that I haven't been too harsh. Awadewit 02:43, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Awadewit, a lot of this is really useful. Re. your final point: there has been some discussion of writing an article on women's writing, but this article was spurred on by the recent deletion of the category "women writers" ( discussion here [#1.13]; arguments for reinstatement here). Following the suggestion that it should at least be possible to write an article about any category based on gender, race, or sexuality, it seemed that the first step to having the question reconsidered was to actually write such an article. So yes, as you point out, it is more a history of the field than a history of women's writing itself. This latter would be an overly ambitious subject for any one article, I should think. Thanks for your careful reading and suggestions. And please, jump in if the spirit moves you! scribblingwoman 03:41, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Women writers as a category

I just (finally) submitted the category for review for reinstatement. Fingers crossed. scribblingwoman 15:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)