Women writers

Women have made significant contributions to literature since the earliest written texts. Women have been at the forefront of textual communication since early civilizations.^{[citation needed]}

History

Among the first known female writers is Enheduanna; she is also the earliest known poet ever recorded. She was the High Priestess of the goddess Inanna and the moon god Nanna (Sin). She lived in the Sumerian city-state of Ur over 4,200 years ago.^[1] Enheduanna's contributions to Sumerian literature, definitively ascribed to her, include several personal devotions to Inanna and a collection of hymns known as the "Temple Hymns". Further additional texts are ascribed to her.^[2] This makes her the first named author in world history.^[3] She was the first known woman to hold the title of EN, a role of great political importance that was often held by royal daughters.^[4] She was appointed to the role by her father, King Sargon of Akkad. Her mother was probably Queen Tashlultum.^[5]^[6] Enheduanna was appointed to the role of High Priestess in a shrewd political move by Sargon to help secure power in the south of his kingdom, where the City of Ur was located.^[7]

7th century BCE

Sappho (/ˈsæfoʊ/; Aeolic Greek Ψαπφώ Psapphô; c. 630 – c. 570 BCE) was an archaic Greek poet from the island of Lesbos.^[a] Sappho is known for her lyric poetry, written to be sung while accompanied by a lyre.^[8] Most of Sappho's poetry is now lost, and what is extant has survived only in fragmentary form, except for one complete poem: the "Ode to Aphrodite". As well as lyric poetry, ancient commentators claimed that Sappho wrote elegiac and iambic poetry. Three epigrams attributed to Sappho are extant, but these are actually Hellenistic imitations of Sappho's style.

In 3rd Century, Tamil poet named, the Avvaiyar who lived during the Sangam period is considered to be contemporary to poets Paranar,[1] Kabilar and Thiruvalluvar.[1] She is attributed as the author of 7 verses in Naṟṟiṇai, 15 in Kuṟuntokai, 4 in Akanaṉūṟu and 33 in Puṟanāṉūṟu.[1] Legend states that she was a court poet of the rulers of the Tamil country. She travelled from one part of the country to another and from one village to another, sharing the gruel of the poor farmers and composing songs for their enjoyment. Most of her songs were about a small-time chieftain Vallal Athiyamaan Nedumaan Anji and his family.[1] The chieftain had also used her as his ambassador to avert war with another neighbouring chieftain Thondaiman.[1] The rest of her songs related to the various aspects of state governance.

11th century

The Tale of Genji was written in the early 11th century by the noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu and is considered by some to be the first novel.

12th century

Anna Komnene, the daughter of the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, wrote Alexiad around 1148. It was written in a form of artificial Attic Greek. Anna described the political and military history of the Byzantine Empire during the reign of her father, thus providing a significant account on the Byzantium of the High Middle Ages. Among other topics, the Alexiad documents the Byzantine Empire's interaction with the Crusades and highlights the conflicting perceptions of the East and West in the early 12th century. It does not mention the schism of 1054 – a topic which is very common in contemporary writing. Nevertheless it successfully documents firsthand the decline of Byzantine cultural influence in both eastern and western Europe, particularly in the West's increasing involvement in its geographic sphere.^[9]

15th century

Christine de Pizan was the best known late medieval French writer, rhetorician, and critic, who wrote Book of the City of Ladies in 1405, a text about an allegorical city in which independent women lived free from the slander of men. In her work she included real women artists, such as Anastasia, who was considered one of the best Parisian illuminators, although none of her work has survived. Other humanist texts led to increased education for Italian women.

The first known book in English by a woman was Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich. It was written between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and survived in various manuscripts until it was first published in 1670.

16th century

Gulbadan Begum, daughter of Mughal's founding Emperor Babur wrote the biography of her brother, Emperor Humayun. Though only 8 when her father died, Gulbadan was asked years later by her nephew to write the story of her father and brother. Only one manuscript of her book, Humayunnama, has been found.^[10]

18th century

Ann Radcliffe authored several novels of gothic fiction including The Mysteries of Udolpho published in 1794 and The Italian from 1797.

19th century

Angelica Kauffman, Literature and Painting, 1782, Kenwood House

One of the best known 19th-century female writers was Jane Austen, author of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816), who achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818, and began another, eventually titled Sanditon, but died before its completion.

Writers from this period include:

A-K

L-R

S-Z

The followed is a list of interdisciplinary female writers of the 19th century:

Kate Greenaway: writer, and illustrator, author (writer and designer) of two children's book illustrations; Marigold Garden (1875) and Under the Window (1879).
Kate Bunce: was an English painter and poet associated with the Arts and Crafts movement.
Elizabeth Siddal: English artist, poet, and artists' model.
Delphine Arnould de Cool-Fortin: French painter and writer on Limoges porcelain.
Dora d'Istria: painter, poet and writer.
Milena Mrazović: journalist, writer, and piano composer.
Aşıq Pəri: poet and folk singer.
Josipina Turnograjska: writers, poets, and composer.
Zoila Ugarte de Landívar: writer, journalist, sculptor, suffragist, and feminist.

Western American women writers

Caroline M. Kirkland

Western women writers have long been a marginalized group. 1979 was the first year an anthology on western American women writers was published.^[11] The Western Literature Association was founded in the 1960's to foster the work of contemporary women writers.^[11] There is little printed recordings on women's writing in the Western United States because establishing the field involved measures that were not seen as scholarly achievement. ^[11] Caroline Kirkland, born in 1801, was considered the first women writer to confidently share the West. She wrote the novel, A New Home—Who'll Follow? after moving to the West with husband, William Kirkland.^[12] Published under the pseudonym Mary Clavers, the novel is a tale of the frontierswoman, and is important for its realism and celebration of the traditional female perspective.^[13]

Black women writers in the United States

Black women continued writing throughout the Great Depression to the 1960's. This was a time of abundance for black female writers, who received recognition like never before. They traveled for lecturing, reading and even made recordings of their work.^[14] The only black female writer to receive prominent recognition in the twentieth century is Zora Neale Hurston. This was mostly because she was considered an "oddball."^[14]

20th century

J.K. Rowling receives honorary degree from Aberdeen University in Scotland, July 6, 2006

In the 20th century women produced many books of all genres. Among fiction books can be named such titles as Harry Potter and The House of the Spirits, among others. The following is a list of female writers of the 20th century:

Women awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature

The following women have won the Nobel Prize in Literature:

Notes

^ The fragments of Sappho's poetry are conventionally referred to by fragment number, though some also have one or more common names. The most commonly used numbering system is that of E. M. Voigt, which in most cases matches the older Lobel-Page system. Unless otherwise specified, the numeration in this article is from Diane Rayor and André Lardinois' Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works, which uses Voigt's numeration with some variations to account for the fragments of Sappho discovered since Voigt's edition was published.

References

^ Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary by Jeremy Black and Anthony Green (1992, ISBN 0-292-70794-0), p. 134 (entry "Nanna-Suen").
^ Hallo and Van Dijk 1968, p. 3.
^ Roberta Binkley (2004). "Reading the Ancient Figure of Enheduanna". Rhetoric before and beyond the Greeks. SUNY Press. p. 47. ISBN 9780791460993.
^ J Renger 1967: "Untersuchungen zum Priestertum in der altbabylonischen Zeit", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie. Vol. 58, p. 118.
^ Elisabeth Meier Tetlow (2004). Women, Crime, and Punishment in Ancient Law and Society: The ancient Near East. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8264-1628-5. Retrieved 29 July 2011.
^ Michael Roaf (1992). Mesopotamia and the ancient Near East. Stonehenge Press. ISBN 978-0-86706-681-4. Retrieved 29 July 2011.
^ Franke, p. 831.
^ Freeman 2016, p. 8.
^ Frankopan 2009, p. xv.
^ Singh, Jyotsna G. (2012-09-01). "Boundary Crossings in the Islamic World: Princess Gulbadan as Traveler, Biographer, and Witness to History, 1523–1603". Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 7: 231–240. doi:10.1086/EMW23617539. ISSN 1933-0065.
^ ^a ^b ^c Lamont, Victoria (2014). "Big Books Wanted: Women and Western American Literature in the Twenty-First Century". Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers. 31 (2): 311–326. doi:10.5250/legacy.31.2.0311. ISSN 1534-0643.
^ "Early Women Writers of the West". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2024-09-18.
^ "Caroline Kirkland (1801-1864)". Heath Anthology of American Literature. Retrieved 2024-09-18 – via college.cengage.com.
^ ^a ^b Hernton, Calvin (July 1985). "The Sexual Mountain and Black Women Writers". The Black Scholar. 16 (4): 2–11. doi:10.1080/00064246.1985.11414346. ISSN 0006-4246.