by
the way, whenever this information come from Other Women's Voices (Dorothy Disse),
I have made a link so you can further explore the material.
Women
Writers Through the Ages -- continued.
Nuns
and Heretics
Egeria
/Etheria /Aetheria (fl. 380s?)
"LADIES, LIGHT OF MY HEART,... DO NOT FORGET ME."
The Itinerarium Egeriae is part of a letter, a travel report to some women back home about a trip lasting over
three years through much of the eastern Roman Empire. Only about four months worth of the letter is extant, but a
Spanish monk of the late 600s, Valerius, described for his fellow monks something of the contents of those parts
of the manuscript that are lost (perhaps as much as two-thirds of the whole).
We aren't sure of the author's name (different copies of Valerius' letter call her Egeria, Etheria, or Aetheria); we
aren't sure where she came from (perhaps from northwestern Spain, perhaps from the Rhone area of Gaul); we
aren't sure of when she made her trip (although the strongest evidence suggests the 380s).
Kassia
/Kassiane /Casia /Icasia (c.810-bef.867)
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"I HATE SILENCE WHEN IT IS A TIME FOR SPEAKING."
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Kassia was probably born and was certainly raised in Constantinople; her family was aristocratic, her father
served in the emperor's court. We don't know how she was educated, but she became skilled in classical Greek.
Another tradition has Kassia being considered as a wife by the Emperor Theophilis in 830 and being rejected
because she spoke up for women (see Gibbon, online); again, the story may be untrue, but its existence shows her
reputation for wit. The woman who became Theophilis' bride apparently shared Kassia's view on iconoclasm;
when she became regent on her husband's death in 843, she was able to permanently reinstate the veneration of
images.
We know nothing of Kassia's life between 830 and 843, whether she married, had children. The next we hear is
that sometime after 843, she founded a monastery in Constantinople and became its first abbess. Her hymns are
generally believed to come from this period; some believe that her secular verse had been written earlier, on the
grounds that it would have been "improper" for a nun to write a list of people she hated, etc. However, we simply
don't know when they were written.
Huneberc
of Heidenheim /Hugeberc /Hygeburg (fl. 778-786)
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"NO ONE MAY AFTERWARD SAY THAT IT WAS AN IDLE TALE."
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Huneberc was born in England; sometime after 761 she went from England to join a Benedictine monastery at
Heidenheim (in Alemannia, north of the Elbe river). The monastery had been founded in 752 by her relatives,
Willibald (701-786) and Wynnebald (702-761). It was a "double" monastery: at the start, Wynnebald was abbot
of the men and his sister Walburga abbess of the women. After Wynnebald's death, Walburga ruled both men and
women. It was under Walberga that Huneberc began her life at Heidenheim.
Sometime before 786 Huneberc wrote Vita Willibaldi episcopi Eischstetensis et vita Wynnebaldi abbatis
Heidenheimensis, the lives of her two kinsmen. Only the preface to the whole and the Vita Willibaldi have been
translated; the latter is usually called the Hodoeporicon (literally, "relation of a voyage").
We know about Huneberc only what she tells us in her preface to the vitae: she is young, she is from "the same
genealogical root" as the men of whom she will write, she knows herself "capable of describing" the scenes she will
present, and she knows that she can "place in the hands of readers something worthy of remembrance."
Heloise (d.1163/4)
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"I DO NOT SEEK A CROWN OF VICTORY; IT IS SUFFICIENT FOR ME TO AVOID DANGER."
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Nothing is known of Heloise's parentage except that in her letters she implies that she is of a lower rank than
Abelard, who was from the minor nobility. She was a ward of an uncle, a canon in Paris, and was educated at the
convent of Argenteuil, near Paris. Between the convent and her uncle, she achieved an unusually thorough
education; Pierre Abelard had heard of her before he met her; he wrote: "A gift for letters is so rare in women that
it added greatly to her charm and had won her renown throughout the realm" (Radice, p.66). When Heloise was
perhaps in her late teens, her uncle asked Abelard, one of the most popular teachers in Paris, to help Heloise
improve her knowledge of philosophy. Abelard tells his story of the seduction of Heloise and its aftermath---their
marriage, the birth of a son, Abelard's castration---near the beginning of his Historica calamitatum.
By 1119, Heloise had, at Abelard's direction, become a nun at Argenteuil, and Abelard had become a monk,
though a rather peripatetic one. Four years later Heloise was made prioress, and so in charge of the education of
the nuns, novices, and the children who were being taught there as she had been. In 1129, the nuns of the
Argenteuil were evicted because of a dispute about the ownership of the land, and the nuns were scattered to
various convents. Abelard went to see Heloise (for the first time in ten years) and offered to her and some of her
fellow nuns possession of the Paraclete, an oratory that he had founded some years before in the Champagne
area. The women moved there and received a charter for their new monastery in 1131; Heloise became abbess.
In 1132, Abelard wrote a letter to a friend, his Historica calamitatum; it circulated among his friends and Heloise
read it. It was this that initiated their correspondence. There are extant four letters by Heloise to Abelard: the first
two are often called the "personal letters," the third is on religious life, and the fourth accompanies the
Problemata, a list of 42 questions about scriptural passages posed by Heloise and her fellow nuns. It is assumed
that the the first three letters were written by 1135 and the fourth perhaps in 1136, when Abelard was back in
Paris teaching. One of Abelard's letters outlines a Rule for the nuns of the Paraclete; an actual Rule, in several
ways differing from Abelard's suggestions, that may have been written by Heloise, is extant, but its dating is unsure.
In 1141, some of Abelard's teachings were condemned; he was on his way to Rome to argue his case when he
became ill. He died in 1142. At his death his body was brought to the Paraclete for burial. We have one more of
Heloise's letters, to the abbot who had been Abelard's superior at his death: she asks for a written statement of her
husband's absolution "to be hung on his tomb" (Radice, p.285) and for a position in the Church for their son.
Heloise served as abbess at the Paraclete for twenty more years, until her death. Under her rule, five dependent
priories were established, and the monastery earned a reputation as one of the most important in France, and her
reputation was as its competent and learned abbess.
Akka Mahadevi
/Mahadeviyakka (1100s)
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"TAKE THESE HUSBANDS WHO DIE, DECAY, AND FEED THEM TO YOUR KITCHEN
FIRES!"
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Akka Mahadevi lived during the 1100s in Karnataka, a region on the southwest coast of India. "Akka" (or
"yakka" if attached at the end) means "respected elder sister."
Tradition says that although she wished to remain an unmarried devotee of Shiva, her family insisted she marry the
ruler of her land. Asserting that Shiva, whom she called Cenna Mallikarjuna (Lord white as jasmine), was her only
lover and husband, she ran away (either before or after her marriage, depending on the source). She then wished
to join a community of Virasaivas (a new and radically democratic group of Shiva devotees), and many of her
poems are said to be part of her successful attempt to prove to the male Virasaiva leaders that she was worthy to
be part of their community. She is believed to have died in her 20s.
Akka Mahadevi's poems are vacanas (literally, "sayings"), free verse lyrics written in the Kannada language.
About 350 extant poems are attributed to her.
Schoolmarms
and Governesses
Otomo no Sakenoue Iratsume (early 700s)
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"...YOUR THOUGHTS DISHEVELED LIKE YOUR MORNING HAIR."
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Manyoshu (Collection of 10,000 leaves) is the first major anthology of Japanese poetry, compiled sometime after
760 and containing over 4500 poems. Most of the poems had been written in the previous 100 years, although a
few are older. Over one-third of the poets represented are women, excluding those poems that are anonymous or
written by men using a female persona.
The compiler of the anthology was Otomo no Yakamochi (c.718-785), and two of the most interesting women in
Manyoshu are connected to him---the one as his aunt, his poetic mentor, and later his mother-law; the other as
one of his lovers.
We know quite a bit about Otomo no Sakenoue's life ("no" is a particle used to join the surname with the personal
name). Her family was powerful in both politics and literature. In about 728, Sakenoue went to live with her
brother to help educate his son Yakamochi; when her brother died two years later, she continued to look after her
nephew and to develop his skill at poetry. At some point she married a prince; when he died she married again to
a prominent member of the Fujiwara family (just beginning the rise that would make it all-powerful 200 years
later). She had at least one daughter, perhaps more. In 740, Yakamochi married her daughter. In 746, he left the
capital for five years to serve as a provincial governor, and his wife went with him. Sakenoue continued to write
poetry throughout her life; when her nephew came to prepare his anthology, he included 79 of her poems, more
than of any other woman.
Bathsua Reginald Makin 1600 - 1675 ?
Daughter of Henry Reginald, a London schoolmaster, Makin was fluent in at least seven languages: English, Latin,
Greek, and French were the languages she knew best, but she also knew Syriac, Spanish, and German. Before her
marriage to Richard Makin, Bathsua (a variation on the biblical name Bathsheba), taught languages in her father's school.
Her proficiency in the languages, taught to her by her father, was unusual for women of that period and was a testimonial to her father's own erudition and teaching skills. Exploiting her talents, her father used her ability to teach in his school was an advertisement for his school.
Married to the less erudite Richard Makin, Bathsua bore at least nine children, six of whom survived. Bathsua
continued to teach on-and-off throughout her lifetime. In the 1640s, she became tutor, not governess, to the Princess
Elizabeth, an accomplishment that she would refer to throughout her life.
Under her father's watchful eye, she published her first work, Musa Virginea, at age 16. Dedicated to King James,
this short work contains poems and encomium directed toward various members of the royal family in Greek, Latin,
Hebrew, and French. When presented to the King, a traditional man, the King asked, "But can she spin?"
Late in life, Makin wrote the work she is best remembered for today. Addressed to the rich, leisured class, An
Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen (1673) was one of the earliest English polemics on the
education of women. Makin uses several techniques to convince her reader that women should be educated.
Citing classical and contemporary women who are educated, she discusses why their education has served them
and their community well. Using a question and answer format, Makin address many of the objections that men have about educating their daughters. Explaining techniques that can be used to educate girls much more quickly than boys, she clarifies her ideal curriculum.
An excerpt:
Objection: Women are of ill natures, and will abuse their Education: They will be proud, and not obey their Husbands;
they will be pragmatic, and boast of their Parts and Improvements. The ill nature that is in them, will become more
wicked, the more wit you furnish them with.
Answer: This is the killing Objection, and every thick skulled Fellow that babbles this out, thinks no
Billingsgate Woman can answer it. I shall take the Objection in pieces.
1. They will abuse Learning. So do men; he is egregiously simple, that argues against the use of a necessary or
very convenient thing from the abuse of it. By this Argument no men should be liberally brought up; strong Drinks
should never be used any more in the World, and a hundred such like things.
2. They are of ill natures. This is an impudent calumnt; as if the whole Sex of Women, or the greatest part of
them, had that malice infused into their verity Natures and Constitutions, that they are ordinarily made worse by
that Education that makes Men generally better.
Ingenas didicisse sideliter artes
Emollit mores, nec sinit esse scros.
The heathen found, that Arts wrought upon Men, the rougher Sex. Surely it is want of fidelity in the Instructor,
if it have not the like effect upon softer and finer materials.
3. They will be proud, and not obey their Husbands. To this I Answer; What is said of Philosophy, is true of
Knowledge; a little Philosophy carries a Man from God, but a great deal brings him back attain; a little
knowledge, like Ballast in a Ship, settles down, and makes a person move more even in his station; 'tis not
knowing too much, but too little that causes the irregularity. This same Argument may be turned upon Men;
what-ever they answer for themselves, will defend Woman.
Those that desire Answer, let them peruse Erasmus his Dialogue, of the Ignorant Abbot and the Learned
Woman. An ignorant Magistrate, or Minister, may as well plead against improvement of Knowledge ion all below
them, lest they should be wiser than themselves, and to deride them. Do not deny Women their due, which is to be
as well instructed as they can, but let Men do this duty, to be wiser than they are. If this does not please, let silly
Men let wise Women alone; the rule is, All should be (as near as they can) equally yoked.
Spinsters
and Pseudonymnic Women
Isotta Nogarola 1417-1461/8
Perhaps the most famous and accomplished learned woman of the century, Isotta Nogarola's career followed the
pattern which would be repeated time and again over the centuries. A product of an intellectually stimulating home,
tutored by some of the best minds of the time, praised as a child for her learning, Nogarola met sharp resistance when
she attempted to continue her work as an adult. Her public life as a Renaissance humanist lasted only 2 years,
1436-1438. Rejected by her male contemporaries, Nogarola did not succumb to pressures of the age and either marry
or enter religious orders. Rather she retreated to her mother's home and to a life of private study and contemplation. The price Nogarola paid for her intellectual freedom was high: perpetual virginity and isolation from other learned
people.
Yet, in spite of, or perhaps because of, her isolation she was an ardent feminist. Possibly the most important debate on the woman question in fifteenth century Italy and certainly the work for which Nogarola is best remembered today, Foscarini and Nogarola exchanged a series of letters wherein they debated the relative guilt of Adam and Eve in the cause of the Fall with Foscarini defending Adam and Nogarola defending Eve.
Jane Anger: Her Protection for Women
Her Protection for Women
Jane Anger
1589, reprinted 1996
Jane Anger's Her Protection for Women is the first published English defense of women believed to have been
written by a woman. Possibly using a pseudonym, Jane Anger responded to Boke His Surfeit in Love, with a farwel to
the folies of his own phantasie (1588) by Thomas Orwin. Only one original copy of Protection is known to have
survived and until the present time it had not been republished. Like so many other wonderful writings by women, we
were in great danger of loosing this work until it was rediscovered and published by our contemporaries.
Written by Jane Anger, Gentlewoman at London, Printed by Richard Lone, and Thomas Orwin, 1589
To the Gentlewomen of England, health.
Fie on the falsehood of men, whose minds go oft a madding, a whole tongues can not so soon be
wagging, but straight they fall a tattling. Was there ever any so abused, so slandered, so railed upon, so
wickedly handled undeservedly, as are we women. Will the Gods permit it, the Goddesses stay their
punishing judgments, and we ourselves not pursue their undoings for such devilish praises: St Paul's steeple
and charring cross. I halter hold all such persons. Let the streams of the channels in London streets run to
swiftly, as they may be able alone to carry them from that sanctuary. Let the stones be as Ice, the soles of
the shoes as Glass, the moats steep like Aetna, & every blast a whirlwind puffed out of Boreas his long
throat that these hasten their passage to the Devils haven, Shall Surfeiters rail on our kindness, you stand
still, lay naught, and shall not Anger, Stretch the vanes of her vanes, the strings of her fingers, and the lists of
her modesty, to answer their surfeiting: Yes truly. And herein I conduce all you to aide and assist me in
defense of my willingness, which shall make me rest at your commands.
Fare you well.
The Desire that every man has to show his true vain in writing is unspeakable, and their minds are so carried away with the manner, as no care at all is bad of the matter: they run so into Rhetoric, as often times they overrun the bounds of their own wits, and go they know not wither. If they have stretched their invention so hard on a last, as it is at a stand, there remains but one help, which is, to write of as women: If they may once encroach so far into our presence, as they may but see the lining of our outermost garment, they straight think that Apollo honors them, in yielding so good a supply to refresh their sore overburdened heads, though studying for matters to invite of.
And therefore the God may see how thankfully they receive his liberality, (their wits whetted, and their brains almost broken with botching his bounty) they fall straight to dispraising and slandering our silly sex. But judge what the cause should be, of this there so great malice towards simple women. Doubtless the weakness of our wits, and our honest bashfulness, by reason whereof they suppose that there is not one amongst us who can, or dare reprove their slanders and false reproaches: their slanderous
tongues are so short and the time wherein they have lashed out their words freely, have been so long, that they know we cannot catch hold of them to pull them out, and they think we will not write to reprove their lying lips: which conceits have already made them cocks and wolves (should they not be cravened) make themselves among themselves be thought to be of the game.
They have been so daintily fed with our good natures, that like jades (their stomachs are grown to queasy) they surfeit of our kindness. If we will not suffer them to smell on our smocks, they will snatch at our petticoats: but if our honest natures cannot away with that uncivil kind assisting them then we are coy: yet if we bear with their rudeness, and be some what modestly familiar with them, they will straight make matter of nothing, blazing abroad that they have surfeited with love, and then their wits must be shown in telling the manner how.
Yours ever at commandment
J A
The
Modern Writer
Anne Bradstreet: Puritan Poet
"A frontier is no friendly place for literary creation; yet within a year after landing with John Winthrop in
Massachusetts, America's first English poet was writing, and the fruits of her pen from the next forty odd years
remain with us today," according to Jeannine Hensley, the editor of her Works. Hensely goes on to say, "she
was not a great poet, but her poetry has endured." It has endured because of the personal intensity and
poignancy of her writings, borne out of hard experience and faith.
Anne Bradstreet was born in 1612 to Thomas Dudley and raised in a prosperous, educated home. After
marrying Simon Bradstreet, she sailed to New England on the Arbella, exchanging a life of relative comfort and
culture for the wilderness of Cambridge. It would appear that she was converted in the midst of her new
hardships of building a home, storing food, enduring sickness, and raising eight children. Her poetry is a
combination of Sixteenth Century convention, her new-found faith, and her struggle for the survival of her family.
She went to be with the Lord in 1672.
"I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who says my hand a needle better fits,
A Poets pen all scorn I should thus wrong,
For such despite they cast on Female wits:
If what I do prove well, it won't advance,
They'l say it's stoln, or else it was by chance."
From "The Prologue" to The Tenth Muse Lately sprung up in America
