Quote of the Month - March 2013

"They did not heed the crashing torrents, and the roar of the elements made her laugh as she lay in his arms. She was a revelation in that dim, mysterious chamber; as white as the couch she lay upon. Her firm, elastic flesh that was knowing for the first time its birthright, was like a creamy lily that the sun invites to contribute its breath and perfume to the undying life of the world.
The generous abundance of her passion, without guile or trickery, was like a white flame which penetrated and found response in depths of his own sensuous nature that had never yet been reached.
When he touched her breasts they gave themselves up in quivering ecstasy, inviting his lips. Her mouth was a fountain of delight. And when he possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life's mystery."

From The Storm by Kate Chopin (1898; publ. 1969)

Kate Chopin (1850-1904)

We're heading forward – the 19th Century: the Victorian era in Britain with Jane Austen and the Bronté sisters presenting strict moral values in their literature. Meanwhile Margaret Fuller and Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote and fought for the various rights on the other side of the Atlantic ocean. But it is also the time of Guy de Maupassant protégé of Gustave Flaubert and favourite French author of this month’s female writer, Kate Chopin.

Kate Chopin was born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Her father was a successful Irish businessman who died when she was only five years old. She grew up with her mother, a pious Catholic, having close contact with her French Canadian grandmother and great-grandmother. Her great-grandmother, a strong-willed storyteller, had a significant influence on her and she became a voracious reader of all sorts of stories and books.

At the age of 20, Kate married Oscar Chopin and moved to New Orleans. She had six children by the age of 28 and became a widow at 32. Persuaded by her mother she returned to St. Louis. Only a year later also her mother died leaving Kate essentially alone with six children. She started a literary career writing short stories, articles and translations, publishing in various periodicals. She was depicting the Cajun and Creole life surrounding her, making her a local color writer. She adopted the style of French contemporaries as Émile Zola and Guy de Maupassant and their realism writing in a non-judgemental narrative style. It was especially her collection Bayou Folk (1894) that won her national recognition, making the Catholic Creoles, their customs and speech memorable to all Americans. A second collection, A Night in Acadie, increased her reputation. Yet, her major novel, The Awakening (1899) was too openhearted in its sexual coming to consciousness of the female protagonist and raised hostility by most critiques. Though the 'new woman' demanding social, economic and political equality was on its way (remember it’s Women’s Day on 8^th March!), Kate's protagonist was one step ahead of time. It was described as 'trite and vulgar' dismissing Kate's sublime art of character development: complex and independent not following suit the current moral ideas as the above named British authors did. Similar to it the short story The Storm (quoted above) has been written in 1898 but only published in 1969 due to the daring characterisation. Bear in mind that the two lovers presented are both married to another partner…what would have ‘Elisabeth Bennet’ of Pride and Prejudice thought of that?

But it is not only the scandals that make Kate’s stories interesting to read: in The Storm, the protagonist develops along the upcoming storm, thunder and lightning form the perfect background of the release of the sexual tension between the two characters, and the dénouement having everyone at ease with the situation. Should Kate have written plays, she could have been a successor of Shakespeare’s comedies. Nevertheless, she is not only some generations farther but also transformed her stories by the usage of theatrical naturalism making her a fine and exceptional local color author. Certainly worth to rediscover this ‘modern’ Creole author!

Again a nice anecdote to be mentioned to modern readers: it is mentioned that she was writing in the midst of her children on a 'lapboard'…

Quote of the Month - February 2013

"A taste of the fine arts requires great cultivation, but not more than a taste for the virtuous affections, and both suppose that enlargement of mind which opens so many sources of mental pleasure. Why do people hurry to noisy scenes and crowded circles? I should answer, because they want activity of mind, because they have not cherished the virtues of the heart. They only therefore see and feel in the gross, and continually pine after variety, finding everything that is simple insipid."

From Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft (1792)

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 - 1797)

Going back in time: we're in the 18th century, the century of the French and American Revolution, the age of Enlightment, the height of the Quing Dynasty and the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Yet, the mentioned citation seems contemporary in its appeal. Time to get to know this extraordinary author...

Mary Wollstonecraft was born the second of six children in London, UK. Not much is known from her early childhood, besides that from an early age on she was frustrated by the career options imposed on women with a confined financial background. Also that she imagined living in a female utopia, of living together with other women and supporting each other emotionally and financially. She almost reached her goal with her closest friend Fanny Blood. They succeeded at least in establishing a school together. Unfortunately, Fanny's health declined rapidly and Mary taking care of her friend abandoned the school which led to its failure. After Fanny's death, Mary wrote her first novel Mary, A Fiction (1788).

With the help of friends, Mary became a governess to a wealthy family in Ireland. But only one year later did she decide to quit her position and to become an author. Another radical decision since there were few female authors able to support themselves let alone authors in general. Nevertheless, Mary was a headstrong woman and with the assistance of the liberal publisher Joseph Johnson, who supported women writers in a time when women were still met with scepticism, she moved to London. She learned French and German, consequently translated various socio-political texts and wrote numerous reviews for Johnson's periodical, the Analytical Review. Johnson supported her and advanced payment to her first book Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787). In 1790, Mary, becoming more and more a fierce advocate of progress and rationality opposing aristocratic and ancestral traditions, wrote her pamphlet A Vindication of the Rights of Men in response to the conservative critique on the French Revolution by Edmund Burke. With it, she became instantly famous. Two years later her most famous and still available work was published: A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), arguing that women are not naturally inferior to men but generally lack education.

During that time, Mary also attended Johnson's dinners where artists and radical thinkers met and exchanged their inventive ideas. It was at one of these dinners that Mary met her later husband, the political philosopher William Godwin. But Mary was more attracted by the artist Henry Fuseli/Johann Heinrich Füssli who was already married. At Mary's suggestion to form a living triangle, Henry immediately severed their friendship and Mary, humiliated, fled to France where she planned to participate in the French Revolution. While she indulged in the historical events, she met the American adventurer Gilbert Imlay who aroused her sexual interest. She fell passionately in love and gave birth to her fist daughter, Fanny Imlay in 1794. Though Gilbert protected Mary by registering her as his wife, he nevertheless left her as soon as they returned to England. Desperately trying to win Gilbert back, Mary went on a trip to Scandinavia with her baby daughter. In her travelogue Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796), Mary describes her impressions as well as her emotional despair. But all attempts to gain Gilbert back failed and Mary returned to her literary life, becoming involved with Johnson's circle again.

Attracted by her Letters, William Godwin courted Mary and by the time she became pregnant a second time they decided to get married, revealing Mary's unmarried status with Gilbert. Godwin, himself, was criticised getting married at all since he had earlier advocated against marriage. Both lost many friends cause to their conduct. Nevertheless, they remained radical retaining their independence by moving into adjoining houses. Unfortunately, their happy and stable relationship would not last. After giving birth to her second daughter, Mary became infected with childbed fever and died 10 days later (Dr. Semmelweis' book on basic disinfection was only published 50 years later). William was devastated. Only six months later did he publish his Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women, wanting to portray Mary with love and compassion, revealing her unconventional life. The book, though, had an opposite effect and distorted Mary's reputation for decades. It's been the suffragettes and feminists who rediscovered her ambitious ideas and appreciated her fight for the rights of women and her influence on the equality of women at an early stage. To feminists worldwide, Mary Wollstonecraft is no unknown author and her ideas and thoughts still reverberate though her life's story is less known. And if you always thought the idea of "living apart together" (LAT) is something new...

Yet another interesting detail:
Mary's and William's daughter took over the literary legacy and became the author of THE classic gothic novel still know today: Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818) by Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin or better known as Mary Shelley. But that is a different story itself again...

Quote of the Month - January 2013

"My hope for the future is that the optimistic child within me will perhaps reawaken one day to a world where regional conflict and Western intervention are a thing of the past; where 'war' and 'power' will be outdated words; or where, at the very least, the word 'peace' will actually represent a realistic goal."

From "The Optimistic Child" by Nawal el Sa'adawi

Nawal el Sa'adawi *1931

Nawal el Sa'adawi was born in Kafr Tahla, a small village in Egypt, as the eldest of nine children. Her father, a government official, had campaigned against the rule of the King and the British in the revolution of 1919 and was consequently dismissed from his post and moved to a village. Being a progressive thinker he saw to it that Nawal, as a girl, learned self-respect and to speak her mind. Unfortunately, her parents died at an early age which left her with the burden of providing for a large family. Nevertheless, she graduated as a medical doctor in 1955 from Cairo University. While she worked as a doctor in her birthplace, she witnessed the oppressions and inequalities that local women were facing. Similar to her father's story: the time she supported one of her female patients against domestic violence she was ordered to move to Cairo where she became Director of Public Health.

In 1969, her book Al-Mar'a wa Al-Jins (Women and Sex) was published in which she openly names the various forms of aggression against women's bodies, including female circumcision. The text became, similar to Simone de Beauvoir's Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex, 1949), a major text for feminism in the Arabic World. As a result Nawal lost her job at the Ministry of Health as well as Assistant General Secretary at the Medical Association in Egypt. Still, she continued with her work and did extensive research on women and neurosis and even became the United Nation's Advisor for the Women's Progamme in Africa and Middle East. Being banned from an official health journal she supported publication of the feminist magazine Confrontation. Her constant activism lead to her imprisonment under President Anwar al-Sadat. In her memoir Mudhakkirati fi sijn annisa (Memoirs from the Women's Prison, 1983) she describes her time in prison. Next to that, she continued to publish numerous essays and books that are partly available in English. In 1988, Nawal had to leave Egypt when Islamists were bullying her and making her life in Egypt unbearable. She turned to teaching at Duke's University and the University of Washington in Seattle in the US. Eight years later, she returned to Egypt, where she still lives and participates at various political and feminist activism. Click on the link and you will find a video with Nawal el Sa'adawi interviewed on the Egyptian Spring Revolution in 2011.

Additionally, in 2012 Nawal received the Stig Dagerman Prize, a Swedish based prize awarded to a person or organisation, that "supports the significance [...] of the 'free word' (freedom of speech), promotes empathy and intercultural understanding." (www.dagerman.us/society/annual-award). To find a complete list of all her publications, please check her website: www.nawalsaadawi.net.

The Other Way Round...

The Western Christian calendar draws to its close of 2012...additionally, my list of female authors having read at the Edinburgh Book Festival in August 2011 is coming to its end. I had a wonderful time introducing the various authors to you and I desperately hope that you had a good read. The more do I hope that you were inspired to read on and read the work of the various authors yourself!!!

I am closing the circle with poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy having the final say for this year. She already had her say in October 2011 as the first author to be mentioned on my new blog. Turn to the page for more information on this outstanding poet.

BUT before Carol takes the stage...remember: this blog will continue!
It only will be a different story with different (female) authors - as interesting as before and worth checking it monthly.

I really look forward to welcoming you back in January 2013 with another Quote/Poem of the Month!

Yours,
Stefanie

Poet of the Month - December 2012

The Bee Carol

Silently on Christmas Eve,

the turn of midnight's key;

all the garden locked in ice -

a silver frieze -

except the winter cluster of the bees.

Flightless now and shivering,

around their Queen they cling;

every bee a gift of heat;

she will not freeze

within the winter cluster of the bees.

Bring me for my Christmas gift

a single golden jar;

let me taste the sweetness there,

but honey leave

to feed the winter cluster of the bees.

Come with me on Christmas Eve

to see the silent hive -

trembling stars cloistered above -

and then believe,

bless the winter cluster of the bees.

From The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy (2011)