Starting out my post-graduate studies, I never imagined that the 17th century would be my area of literary and historical focus. Initially, the poetry of the romantic period attracted me. The earlier poets, Donne, Jonson, Dryden, Pope were intimidating—especially the allusions to Christianity for which I had little context. As I get older, the Romantics often seem verbose.
As I age, I face a truth that I had sensed, though not always named. Whatever power I had wielded, had been a combination of looks, sexuality, and intellect.
Somewhere around my mid-forties, I became invisible. It took a handful of years to come to terms with my membership in The Invisibility Club. But intellect remains and this validation changed my life.
Previously, I never had to test gender limitations. I knew instinctively how to use my power. In my forties, Professor Holly Laird introduced me to feminist theory. I still avoid the angrier theorists, but in re-reading some of my Bread Loaf journaling, I see how I was attracted to Helène Cixous’ more joyful writing, especially when referring to women writers.
I had forgotten how I cited her approach to feminist theory in one of my Oxford papers on 17th century poet Anne Finch. Through winding in and out of research, I landed in an era of repression so complete, that I felt outrage for the first time and knew this was an angle from which I needed to delve deeper. Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” entered the picture: Now seeds are connecting.–WH Forrester, “Only connect.”
Cixous’ poetic essay, The Laugh of Medusa, intends to break structural norms set by patriarchy. She prefers a more playful, imaginative medium. Cixous urges women to write extensively. She coins the concept of ‘écriture feminisne, translated, ‘feminine writing.’ “Cixous uses the Greek myth of monster Medusa, depicted as a fierce, ugly woman, full of rage and has snakes instead of hairs on her head. Cixous argues that this narrative of Medusa has “been distorted by patriarchal man to depict woman who have desires as dangerous, contrary to the beautiful, loyal and virgin princess that is they adored.”
“Woman must write herself, and must put herself into the text—as into the world and into history—by her own movement. Write yourself Your body must be heard.”
