Women Writers: June 2009

Monday, June 29, 2009

England: Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn (1640 – 1689)

Aphra Behn was born in Canterbury in the year 1640 during the hard time of the English Civil War. She was the daughter of a nurse and barber. After an extent of traverling she became Mrs. Behn, but later was windowed. There was little know about her husband. She is consider by most as one of England’s first professional writers. She wrote many plays, some were bad and some good. One of her novels she wrote was Love-letters a story of a Nobleman and his younger sister. During her time she wrote for Nell Gwyn, John Dryden and the Duke of York; two scientific for French. At this time it was unheard of for a woman to write on these subjects.
In 1681 in the last decade of her life, Behn was overwhelm in the fast interest in gender, class and race with all this she was said to be the First Lady of Cultural Studies. Many other women thought about this, but many were too scared to do anything. Some Old Guard believed that Behn was part of a subject of debasement she was here to stay.
Even with her new status many editions of the works on the market, Aphra Behn was not a veneration. Though some still thought of her in this way she was a Troy royalist that believed common people were controlled by a strong whip. The Royal Slave written in 1688 was one of her most famous short story about slavery practice. She believes that a person’s sexual moral was a private matter and no one else’s is business. Behn also believe that the man was not the head of the house or of his kingdom; that a freedom was a lesser of people and anything was except treason.
Aphra Behn was seen to have clear view of her work even when her private life was not was available to the public. Aphra was fascinated in her last years when she became a firm supporter and continues to work with James II in his short reign. Even has she was very sick and it became harder for her to write she would work right up to her the time she died in 1689.

By: Danny C.

England: Anna Doyle Wheeler

Anna Doyle Wheeler (1785 – 1848)

Anna Doyle was born in the year 1785 and was the daughter of a prebendary. Anna did not have any formal education, but did learn to read and write which in fact would help her out in the future. At the very young age of 15 Anna met and married Francis Massey Wheeler, but the marriage only lasted 12 years. While married she sot out books from her husband even the work of philosophers. After she left her husband she went to Guernsey to stay with her uncle. Anna didn’t stay there long she left Guernsey to enroll her two daughters in the school of London.
When her ex husband died in 1820 Anna was left with no means of support, leaving her dependent upon herself she later asked her family for money through her writing she supported herself. Also, she had to translate works of French Owenites and Charles Fourier. Anna was the first to translate these writings from French to English before she could sell them. This was a pretty amazing thing to do where having to translate from one language to another. She also had many friends for support where she sometimes stayed with when she travelled from town to town spreading her feminist views; cities she visited were London, Caen, Dublin and Paris.
While returning to London she met a man by the name of William Thompson. The two became close friends and were part of a social circle that included James Mill, Jeremy Bentham and other operators. Sometime later, Anna moved to France where she began to work on a translation of work with Charles Fourier who she met in France.
In 1825 William Thompson was so inspired by Wheeler and for her being a strong woman he wrote an appeal for women to have equal civil and political rights even voting as a need for women. Thompson later left Wheeler an annuity of 100 lbs in his will when he had died.
The first women to mount a rally in England gave a speech a public speech in London. When Wheeler was 55 years old her health began to decline, she wanted no visitors in her home. In 1848 Wheeler was invited to go to the French Revolution, but was too very sick to attend and later that year she died.

By: Danny C.

Friday, June 26, 2009

ROME: Laura Cereta

Laura Cereta

Laura Cereta was born in Italy in an aristocratic family around 1469. She was a feminist during the renaissance era. Her form of writing was letters to other writers and intellectuals of her time period. She was taught both languages, Latin and Greek which opened many doors for her. When she turned seven years old, she was taken to a convent were she was taught skills such as reading and writing as well as religion. As a child she was very fragile and suffered diverse illnesses. Being the eldest of all six children, at the age of nine years old she went back home to take care of her younger brothers and sisters. At the age of fifteen, she married Pietro Serina. Laura Cereta became a widow after a year and two months of marriage, and pursued a writing career publishing her first set of letters in 1488 titled, “Epistolae familiars.”

Laura Cereta wrote a letter in January 13th of 1488 titled, "Letter to Bibulus Sempronius,” which became one of her best known works. In her letter she talks about her possessing great intelligence just as men did. Cereta also emphasizes that all the previous ideologies about women and their lack of thought and incapability to take care of themselves are wrong.

Laura Cereta argues that women were granted by nature to be outstanding, but they just preferred not to have so many goals. She states that there are two types of women. There are women who have chosen to be animated stones, giving up intelligence and knowledge that would make them wise as men. These types of women according to Laura Cereta are concerned with their appearance; they love dresses, accessories, and spent all day looking at themselves in the mirror. On the other hand, she said there are women who chose to have a profound honor in their personas and desired to be virtuous. These women had opened their ears; restrain their tongues and minds to expose their thoughts. Cereta also states that these women would write letters to intellectual about what was righteous.

Laura Cereta accentuates that wisdom is not granted as a gift or talent; it is a skill that must be developed with education. She stressed that men envied her because of her intellect because it went against all their ideologies. Indeed, men opposed to her writing and went to the extreme of accusing her of plagiarism because a woman could not write that well, neither had the capabilities to learn other languages and write fluently in these, very typical ideologies of these time frame.

By: Iliana L.

England: Margery Kempe

Margery Kempe was a female writer of the fifteen century. She was born about 1373 in England. Margery gave a great attribute to writing with her book, “The Book of Margery Kempe,” which is considered to be the first English biography. She had an excellent memory that helped her recall most of the events of her life, although they were not in chronological order for which she offers an apology in her book. Margery Kempe did not consider her childhood important which is why she omitted this stage of her life. The only thing she tells of her childhood is that she committed a great sin and then moves on to her married life.

Margery was not an educated woman, as she had poor writing and reading skills. She said that God gave her revelations that she wrote in a mixture of English and German. Later on, she asked her confessor, the Priest if he could write her book in proper English which he did. She lived in England during the medieval times, periods when the economy was down and the politics were not for women. When she was in her twenty’s Margery was married to a burgess of Lynn. She would spend great quantities of money on clothes and ornaments for other women to look at her. John Kempe was angry about Margery’s showy behavior. She decided to start her own business to acquire extra income and started a drink trade business which was successful for about four years, but then it went down. Experts say that she was illiterate, but yet she wrote part of her book in a mixture of English and German. This skill might had been developed through religious teachings and reading the Holy Scripture; the Bible.

There were prominent personalities that also may have influenced Margery such as William Southfield in Norwich, Walter Hilton, and William Sleightholme in Bridlington. In her book she narrates her life in which people can inquire how women in the medieval time used to live. Lynn Staley states in his book that Margery Kempe’s book is a testimony of religious and social crisis during the medieval times of urban life. He also stressed that gives an inimitable view of society in women’s life were Catholicism was confronted by a radical system of thought, the Wycliffie system.

In Margery Kempe’s book, the reader can see that she was not an ordinary woman, but completely the opposite. Her acquaintances even thought she was going mad. Margery Kempe is a great gift to literature because she granted us the first English autobiography.

By: Iliana L.

SOURCES

Websites:

http://www.haverford.edu/library/reference/mschaus/mfi/other.html

http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/ http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/aulnoy.html

http://www.haverford.edu/library/reference/mschaus/mfi/other.html

http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/ http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/whm2003/wheeler.html

http://www.chawtonhouse.org/library/biographies/behn.html

http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/teresa.html

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/111.3/br_142.html

www.wildviolet.net/world_voyage/margery_kempe.jpg

http://www.jimandellen.org/ChristineDePisanWriting.jpeg

http://web.archive.org/web/20001205233600/