Undermining the Masculine Canon

As I mention on the Editor Page, I am a graduate student working on my thesis in “Modern Matriarchal Literature” (to be defined in a later post).  This movement begins with Virginia Woolf, who challenges women writers to develop distinctly feminine voices. 

For centuries, Men had dominated the literary scene. These male writers, editors and critics defined what was good literature. In the fictionalized account of the days preceding her lecture on “Women and Fiction,” Woolf utilizes narrative to point this out:

Lamb is one of the most congenial; one to whom one would have liked to say, Tell me then how you wrote your essays? For his essays are far superior even to Max Beerbohm’s, I thought . . . Certainly he wrote an essay–the name escapes me–about the manuscript of one of Milton’s poems which he saw here . . . it is in this famous library that the manuscript of Thackeray’s Esmond is also preserved.

In a page and a half, Woolf (almost coquettishly) points out that men have shaped literary history and it is their great works that are coveted, preserved, and emulated. Therefore, Woolf subtly implies, if women only have male literary models, wouldn’t feminine works be a mere replication of masculine works.

Woolf argues that the absence of women in literature is do to political and economic tradition:

a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction

This statement became a landmark in literary history. If you have read (or would like to read this work with me) please feel free to use the comment section as a book discussion forum.