Eve Bites Back: An Alternative History of English Literature

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Dr Rahul Raina (Kellogg, 2013) will share lessons learned from Microsoft’s customer success engagements at Ontario Power Generation (OPG) It is said that providing I don’t speak about authority, culture, politics, morality, people, the opera or other entertainments, nor about anyone who believes anything, then I can print freely. Our September/October issue i s available in bookshops as well as Waitrose, WHSmiths, Booth’s and Easons. Unfortunately, when we get to the essay on Anne Bradstreet, Eve begins to lose her bite. Perhaps Beer wrote this chapter to maintain a steady chronology. But I don’t see how Bradstreet fits the book’s premise. In fact, Beer suggests that Bradstreet’s poetry might have been published — with the help of her father, husband, and brother-in-law — to counter the scandalous behavior of her sister Sarah, a London preacher. “Why should Bradstreet do our feminist heavy lifting,” Beer asks. To which I reply, tell us more about Sarah! But dismantling the patriarchy can’t be done alone, and all of these authors found male allies to get their work into print. Kempe had scribes; Austen and Bradstreet had fathers and brothers (and, in Bradstreet’s case, a husband) to champion them; Braddon had the support of her husband and publisher.

Anna and Helen talked about how women through the ages have been unable to find writing success as they silenced themselves for protection in society. However, they were writing nonetheless, and they could’ve had a legacy similar to their male contemporaries. Yet they were rarely taken seriously enough. Women’s work was usually ignored and appropriated; it was hardly ever shared or published. So this book is also for those who aren’t featured: women writers whose work no one ever knew about. Importance beyond the academic world Beer uses their individual stories to tell a larger truth about literary history and how it pertains to women. There are running threads of patriarchal oppression, obviously, but specifically the spread of religious fervour and sexual panic. To sell your mind was, and is to some, the same as selling your body and the links between the aggressive response to female writers and sex workers was equally interesting and disturbing. Clearly, some of these authors are more well known to us today than others, but even someone as famous as Jane Austen is only a blinding success in hindsight. Her legacy was hard fought, well earned, and never guaranteed. Anna noted that a running theme throughout her book is this silence, and a self-imposed silence. That it’s our job now to listen to these silences and look for clues. Because we have access to so many books written by women nowadays, it can be easy to think domains like literature are “inclusive enough”. However, all forms of misogyny and sexism are still present.Anna Beer investigates the lives and achievements of eight women writers, uncovering a startling and unconventional history of literature She gives the societal construct, the current views/constraints on women (and women writers) for each of the women in the century in which they lived. She looks at them through our concerns today: sexism, racism, slavery, religious persecution, and explains their stance in the context of their society. She doesn't dismiss or excuse; but explains. As a literature student myself, naturally I was intrigued when offered to attend the event on behalf of Bristol Women’s Voice. The talk was hosted by the lovely staff at Gloucester Road Books and Sidney & Eden, and chaired by Helen Taylor, a retired English professor. It turned out to be a friendly evening of thought-provoking discussion about gender in our literary history. Women writing against the odds Over the weekend of 22 – 24 September 2023 we will once again host our Meeting Minds Global series of events for Kellogg and Oxford alumni.

Medicine and philosophy, astronomy and theology all combined for millennia to insist that the female body is intrinsically faulty, cold, wet, irrational, changeable and above all fallen: unfit for the task of authorship. You can see why people questioned whether Trota of Salerno, a female doctor in 11th-century Italy, actually wrote a number of texts about diseases and health conditions affecting women. Surely a woman could not possess the intelligence and expertise to have written the works?Because, as a woman, if you are given the gift of education, your literacy is not a means of opening doors to different ways of being, but designed to prepare you better for your decreed role in life. Your task is to provide moral guidance, not to entertain, since for you to provide pleasure to your reader would make you little more than a courtesan. If you do have to write about sex and desire, then bear in mind that religious and literary traditions link women’s sexuality to subjection rather than authority. Beer presents them chronologically, with each essay devoted to an individual author, except for the first. That one concerns Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, two devotional writers from the early 1400s. Kempe was a survivor, writing her pilgrimage travelogue at a time when possessing a single Bible verse in English was punishable by death. Julian, on the other hand, wrote from an anchorhold — a doorless, enclosed cell in a church. In her Revelations of Divine Love, she defied convention by writing for a female readership and by conceiving of God as mother as well as father. It made me think about the importance of uplifting women in all types of work that they do, whether that be creative, professional or domestic. And that literature and literacy are also a privilege not afforded to everyone. An empowering manifesto Alongside her work as a biographer, Anna teaches English Literature and Creative Writing to undergraduates and postgraduates; contributes to the Oxford Student Texts series for Oxford University Press; and makes regular lecture and media appearances. The Linton Lecture will be followed by a drinks reception for event speakers, OCLW Linton Friends, OCLW Visiting Scholars and invited guests.